Awesome information! hope you don't mind that I post your info in this thread:
First rotation: Global Health Outreach Trip
Pros: Very awesome. The experience was great and very rewarding. It lasted a week and counted for four weeks (winning!).
Cons: Expensive, time consuming pre-rotation preparation, extensive paperwork involved, vaccines, etc. Probably didn't do much to prepare me to actually be a pharmacist.
Final Thought: Likely to be my favorite rotation. Would certainly do it again.
Second rotation: Community (Independent)
Pros: The staff was friendly, got LOTS of experience counseling, also got to compound and do some other cool retail stuff
Cons: Not many. You do feel like free help sometimes I guess. When it is busy it does not exactly feel like a learning environment, to put it mildly.
Final Thought: I feel like most people who put down communty rotations probably don't take advantage of the opportunity as much as they should. I worked at CVS for two years before this rotation and still learned a lot from my preceptors about how to counsel, different facts about medications, being a pharmacist, etc. Have an open mind and just absorb as much as you can.
Third Rotation: Amb Care
Pros: Great hours, staff was friendly, preceptors challenge me more than my first two rotation sites (but not in a stressful way
), by far the most 'professional' setting I have seen a pharmacist in.
Cons: After the first hundred INR checks I doubt there is much more to learn. It gets monotonous.
Final Thought: Pretty cool overall, but it is just doing the same thing over and over and over...
And that is all I have so far. Hopefully others find this idea helpful and contribute.