You know it- What character does it take to be a pharmacist?

[simplyanny]

So first a greeting from a pre-pharm newbie! It was during this winter break that I've got exposure with pharmacy and started to get interested in it. The more I researched on it the more I like it so here I am, happily joining this wonderful group of peeps and humbly asking for your experiences and wisdom!

So what do you think it takes to be a pharmacist? Character-wise? Personality-wise? Interest-wise? Talent-wise?

Can we have some discussions from the pre-pharm students,the pharmacy school students and especially the already-pharmacists? I would love to hear your inputs!

And happy school to everyone! UT starts next week..

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[baggywrinkle]

patience and a high tolerance for abuse

 

[jemc2000]

This was posted on the UF-COP website:

Technical Standards for Pharmacy School Admission

Candidates for the Doctor of Pharmacy degree must be able to perform the essential
functions in each of the following categories: Observation, Communication, Motor, Intellectual,
and Behavior/Social. However, it is recognized that degrees of ability vary among individuals.
Individuals are encouraged to discuss their disabilities with the Associate Dean for Professional
Affairs and consider technological and other facilitating mechanisms needed in order to train and
function effectively as a pharmacist. The UF College of Pharmacy is committed to enabling its
students by any reasonable means or accommodations to complete the course of study leading to
the Doctor of Pharmacy degree.

? Observation: A candidate must be able to observe demonstrations and experiments in the basic
sciences, including but not limited to physiological and pharmacological demonstrations in animals,
evaluation of microbiological cultures, and microscopic studies of microorganisms and tissues in
normal and pathological states. A candidate must be able to observe a patient accurately at a distance
and close at hand. In detail, observation necessitates the functional use of the sense of vision and
other sensory modalities.

? Communication: A candidate must be able to communicate effectively and sensitively with patients.
The focus of this communication is to elicit information, describe changes in mood, activity and
posture, and perceive nonverbal communication. Communication includes speech, reading, writing,
and computer literacy. A candidate must be able to communicate effectively and efficiently in oral
and written forms with all members of the health care team.

? Sensory/Motor: A candidate must have sufficient motor function to elicit information from patients
by physical touching patients, e.g., assessing range of motion of a joint, blood pressure readings,
taking a pulse reading. A candidate must be able to execute motor movements to provide general
care and emergency treatments to patients, e.g., first aid treatments, cardiopulmonary resuscitation. A
candidate must be able to execute motor movements required in the compounding of medications
inclusive of using techniques for preparing sterile solutions, e.g., parenteral or ophthalmic solutions.
Such actions require coordination of both gross and fine muscular movements, equilibrium, and
functional use of the senses of touch and vision.

? Intellectual (Conceptual, Integrative, and Quantitative Abilities): A candidate must have the ability
to measure, calculate, reason, and analyze. A candidate must be able to synthesize and apply
complex information. A candidate must be fully alert and attentive at all times in clinical settings.

? Behavioral/Social Attributes: A candidate must possess the emotional health required for full
utilization of his or her intellectual abilities, the exercise of good judgment, and the prompt
completion of all responsibilities attendant to the interaction with patients. A candidate must possess
the ability to develop mature, sensitive, and effective relationships with patients. A candidate must be
able to tolerate physically taxing workloads and to function effectively under stress. A candidate
must be able to adapt to changing environments, to display flexibility and learn to function in the face
of uncertainties inherent in the clinical problems of many patients. A candidate must possess
compassion, integrity, interpersonal skills, and motivation to excel in pharmacy practice.

 

[simplyanny]

Originally posted by baggywrinkle
patience and a high tolerance for abuse

Hum..What do you mean by "a high tolerance for abuse"..abuse from whom?

 

[simplyanny]

Thanks Jemc2000 for your very informative info! Don't you think it's a very high standard for any of the health professionals?

Academic wise what does it take? Does one have to be able to excel in Chemistry to be a good pharmacist?


Keep it going!

 

[LVPharm]

Originally posted by simplyanny
Hum..What do you mean by "a high tolerance for abuse"..abuse from whom?

...patients, doctors, management and others within your organization (even perhaps your own colleagues)....in hospitals, you'll get it from some of the nurses too

You'll find that donning a white coat doesn't automatically confer upon you the "aegis" of respect and authority.

 

[baggywrinkle]

Originally posted by LVPharm
...in hospitals, you'll get it from some of the nurses too

only if you are very very lucky

 

[jemc2000]

You asked: "Does one have to be able to excel in Chemistry to be a good pharmacist?"

Well, I am also a newbie in this field of study. I am not halfway through my prereqs. But I can say that you do need to have a handle on Chemistry to get through pharmacy school. We have to take Chemistry I & II, Organic Chemistry I & II and preferably Biochemistry and physical chemistry before we even get into our program at UF.

Then once in, there are classes called Medical Chemistry and Biochemistry to name a few. So I would have to say, that Chemistry is a major foundation for a pharmacist. But that is totally just my opinion.

Is it used in the field? That would have to be answered by others.

 

[simplyanny]

Originally posted by LVPharm
...patients, doctors, management and others within your organization (even perhaps your own colleagues)....in hospitals, you'll get it from some of the nurses too

Hey LVPharm, in my opinion the abuse occurs in every profession that involved PEOPLE, what do you think? Is it particularly serious in pharmacy (because pharmacists have to work in a health care team)?

people may be the hardest to deal with a lot of times?..

 

[simplyanny]

Originally posted by jemc2000
Is it used in the field? That would have to be answered by others.

So for the practicing pharmacists, what do you think? If I want to go into a field with more patient contact, to what extent do I need to deal with chemistry? All opinions appreciated!

 

[loo]

Chemistry...(as far as academics)
Nope, you don't have to be a whiz. Just memorize, memorize, memorize (especially for organic). Don't sweat it.

As to the extent of how much you'll use it? It depends. If you decide to do graduate work...yeah. Some chemistry is involved in compounding, so you'd use it there, too. Sometimes you have to explain things to the know-it-all client, or to another professional.

Hope it helps a little,

loo

 

[LVPharm]

Originally posted by simplyanny
Hey LVPharm, in my opinion the abuse occurs in every profession that involved PEOPLE, what do you think? Is it particularly serious in pharmacy (because pharmacists have to work in a health care team)?

people may be the hardest to deal with a lot of times?..

True, and you can't make generalizations about the level of abuse from different people, either. Let's talk "retail pharmacy". In retail, you have patients who respect you and your knowledge...they call you "doc" and seek your advice for every imaginable health-related problem...you also get the patients who see you as an obstacle to them obtaining their meds. Part of it is that not every patient realizes what your work entails. Some think that all you do is pour the little pills onto a tray, count it out by 5's, stick it in a bottle and label it (the label magically appears with little effort...what's an insurance hassle?). It shocks them that it could possibly take you more than 3 minutes from drop-off to pick-up. It shocks some of them that there are other people waiting for their meds ahead of them...I always hear "can't you do mine first?" from some of our more impatient patients. In this hurry-up, ATM, fast-food environment, people have been conditioned to the point that they have forgotten what it's like to wait a few minutes. Abuse has probably always been an aspect of dealing with other people...in any occupation. But consider phenomenon like "air rage", or "road rage"....some people have grown to expect convenience and speed, and when they get the opposite, they react with irrational anger.

Whew, now I feel better...back to studying "Infectious Diseases"

 

[SteveL]

You don't need to be some science buff...it's all just memorization. The thing is, if you already have an interest in it, it's MUCH easier to learn...especially with med chem and pharmacology...if you work a lot in a pharm/hosp and see the stuff everyday, it's a whole lot easier to relate the material and see the practical application in it. Many times in pharmacology i sit there and put myself in an imaginary situation where I'm asked the side effect of a drug etc by a patient I know at work, which helps me two fold: at work and in class.

Also, as mentioned...to cut it in the real world, the big thing you'll need is a "low-key" attitude. I work in a relatively HV pharmacy and I get ****ty attitudes all day long from patients with insurance problems, etc. If you look at a pharmacy from the outside, it looks very cut and dry, but it's a much different story looking out from the pharmacy. It's not always easy to explain to a patient that their drug needs a "prior authorization" or that it's "a non-formulary drug and your insurance doesn't want to pay for it." They have no knowledge of these terms and trying to explain it to them with about 7 other problems you are trying to juggle every second sure doesn't help. What I'm saying is...if you get pissed at every patient who gets upset with you yells at you and you take all of that to heart...you are gonna be in for a career's worth of ****.

To put is simply...being a pharmacist is many times one of the most underappreciated jobs in the world. Most patients think: "why the hell does it take so long to fill a bottle and slap a label on??!!" As I mentioned, they don't know what else is going on in the pharmacy so it can be frustrating...the thing is you just have to deal with that and be content with the fact that you know you're looking out for the dingus's best interest, no matter what he says to you...

 

[simplyanny]

Thank you so much guys for your informative and helpful input! There are many valid points for me to think over which is definitely worthwhile!

So anymore points on the extent of Chemistry in pharmacy? More practicing pharmacists? Keep'em coming!

And for the current pharmacy students, is it true that the 1st Professional year is the hardest year? I heard P1 is a year with hard-core learning of basic chem and bio concepts....?love to hear what you think!

 

[LVPharm]

Not a problem, simplyanny, that's what this forum's for!

As far as 1st year curriculum is concerned, that's a little different from school-to-school. At my school, 2nd year is the toughest in the didactic curriculum. I had no problem with first year stuff. I already had biochemistry, so relearning all the metabolic pathways, and the disease states associated with them was no problem. Pharmacology was fine, the toughest portion of 1st year was towards the end...pharmacokinetics is tough. We didn't have any hardcore chemistry. We applied concepts previously learned in the acid-base portion of GChem, stuff like Henderson-Hasselbach equation...we also had to know OChem nomenclature and functional groups, pKa, etc. But it wasn't "hardcore" for me.

2nd year is proving to be quite a challenge. It's basically all "therapeutic disease state management" (TDSM), where we go through each of the body systems and the disease states associated with them, and discuss the appropriate pharmacotherapeutics for the disease's treatment. Right now, I'm in the toughest portion of 2nd year..."Infectious Diseases". Tons of bugs, tons of drugs, all to be memorized and sorted in your head (which antibiotics kill what organisms). We then have to go through every major type of infection from head to toe, learn the bacteria responsible, and the appropriate antibiotic regimen to treat each type of infection. Lots of pure memorization. On top of that, we're still memorizing our "Top 200" drugs (including indications, dosages, adverse drug reactions, drug-drug interactions, contraindications, etc.) I can't wait for spring break to come around.

 

[drx604]

i don't know about you pharmDs now...but when i was in university things were different..... keep in mind that Canada is still following the BSc (pharm.) standard.... (only 16 pharmD grads a year in the country! wtf?!?)

here's some of my thoughts...

did you... or do you guys have to take pharmaceutics....... wow... very boring... sometimes useful when compounding.... but nonentheless... 4 hours a week for two semesters on this???? wtf?

pharmacolgy/therapeutics was very interesting.... more relevant to the job..... and really the heart of pharmacy... unfortunately they didn't start the pharm/therapeutics lectures til halfway thru second year...

medchem section was more difficult.... who really asks you about some of the structure/activity relationships of o-chem groups in the retail setting?

pharmaceutical analysis... if you guys have to take it.... very very boring... and somewhat pointless unless your heading towards the industry side of things... if i wanted to spend five hours in a lab i would've enrolled into the chemistry department ... not pharmacy

there was some other mandatory class i took about genetic/recombinant DNA technology.... stuff im never going to use... the 'big project' was about making a website about a genetic disorder...

professional practice classes.... the lecture was sort of common sense type of thing as they taught us ethics, documentation and stuff like that.... the practice labs were more real life/hands on... lots of counselling practice and playing with condoms and taste testing cough syrups and fun stuff like that

kinetics is interesting...just some math concepts.... too bad it was early in the morning and i fell asleep thru half the lectures.

one thing that was lacking was the clinical rotations...... its much better now at my old school.. but back in my day ... i got the short end of the stick so to speak... in terms of valuable clinical (ie. hospital) experience one month only at a hospital site... after graduation you could apply for a hospital residency...... but theres only like less than a dozen sites in the province....... clinical experience... imo ... should be part of the program itself.... not something you have to compete for later on........

in retail rotations they treat you like a tech... and they make you do ALL the counselling... while they sit on the computer and drink coffee (i am guilty of treating my students/interns like that )

anyways.....nuff rambling

 

[Samoa]

The whole curriculum has changed at my pharm school since I was there. This was my experience:

1st year: survey course on careers in pharmacy, med chem I & II, chemical analysis lab, pharmaceutics I, compounding lab, pharmaceutical calculations (this is coming back to haunt me now in med school physiology--thankfully my C was from sleeping through an exam, and not because I can't calculate in my head), pharmacology I, statistics, some electives. I took an architecture appreciation class, advanced nutrition, and med chem research.

2nd year: med chem III, pharmaceutics II & III, basic pharmacokinetic calculations lab x 2 semesters, pharmacology II, pharmacology lab (not what it sounds like--we had to use Hypercard to create an educational module on some drug class--frankly, a total waste of time), pretend-you're-a-real-pharmacist lab, pharmacy practice, and pharmacotherapy. No electives that year.

3rd year (I tracked into the PharmD program at this point, so this is not what I took): pharmacy law, tons of electives, then the last semester was three rotations--hospital, retail and clinical. then you graduate.

PharmD 3rd year: advanced pharmacy practice (how to write SOAP notes, consults, drug information responses, etc), drug information (how to search the literature & where to find stuff), advanced pharmacotherapy I & II (diseases and how to treat 'em), sterile admixtures (how to make IV's & TPNs, care & feeding of your laminar flow hood), OTC drugs, biostatistics & study design, physical examination skills lab (this COULD have been fun, but the instructors sucked all the joy out of it), advanced pharmacokinetics (mad calculator skillz), pharmacy law.

PharmD 4th year: 8 rotations, 6 weeks each. 2 acute care medicine or medical specialty, 1 retail, 1 hospital, 2 selectives (medicine or medical specialty), 2 electives (anything under the sun--I did a legislative internship and clinical research).

So that was my experience. Now they've restructured and are teaching an organ-system-based, integrated basic and clinical science course. I think. Unless they've changed it again.

 

[dgroulx]

Year one is not bad. At UF we have two semesters of pathophysiology where we are learning organ systems and disease states. Biochemistry was about the same as it was in undergrad, memorizing enzymes, pathways, how things are inhibited and learning some clinical coorelations. Dosage Forms I & II are straight forward. Some chemistry in part I and pharmaceutical calculations in part II. Pharmacy Systems was about "the art" of pharmacy. It was an easy A. Practicum I & II are community health screenings and we are assigned a family to look after and monitor. We also have to do presentations with something called integraded case studies. Microbiology/Immunology does not cover any material that I hadn't seen before. Fundamentals of med chem was a 6 week intro course, just to get our feet wet. It included acid/base equilibrium problems, some organic chem and wasn't too hard. I'm taking a class on nucleotides right now. It's not exactly genetics, but the chemistry & drugs that are used to target DNA. We have to draw drug structures, know and draw the mechanisms from a pro drug to the active form, stuff like that. Pharmacotherapy is learning drug classes and appyling them to the appropriate situation using mock counseling sessions and being called on and quizzed on the week's material. I'm in the first semester out of 5. This one isn't hard, as they are easing us slowly into the course. Intro to pharmacology doesn't start until March, but it will be just another getting your feet wet type of class.

The second year we get real Medicinal Chemistry I & II, Pharmacology I & II, Pharmacotherapy II & III, Therapeutics I & II, Practicum III & IV, Dose Optimization, Medication Usage, & Patient Care Communication. I'm friends with some 2nd year students and they all say that the schedule is extremely difficult material.

Some people struggled with year one, but those students only had AA degrees. Year one is just a little harder than my senior year of college. But, that is a big jump for a community college student.

 

[simplyanny]

wow thanks everyone that chipped in your experiences, it would be really helpful! I'll come back later for more reflection, off to clean up a week's schoolwork now!

If you have more to share, please do!

 

[simplyanny]

So I finally had a little time to leave a message...4-year college is hard but I guess professional school does require a lot more...looking forward to learning all the good stuff!!



like what I've asked in Tri's thread(in case some ppl didn't see it), for those already in pharmacy schools, what classes in undergrad are most helpful for you now in pharmacy school? curious mind wants to know...

 

[gdk420]

Human anatomy with lab
Physiology
Biochemistry with lab
Immunology
Microbiology
Genetics
Statistics (To understand clinical papers)
Calculus
General Chemistry with lab
Organic Chemistry with lab
Public speaking (There are tons of presentations u have to do in school)
Molecular biology

 

[dgroulx]

I'd add a lab to genetics. You get a better understanding when you are doing your own gene splicing, plasmid inserting, PCR, etc.

 

[loo]

What would be helpful?

1. Keep your head screwed on straight. There's a lot of material, but it's NOT that bad.

2. Keep up on the reading. Read a week ahead of the instructor. You'll have some exposure to the material prior to lecture. As a result, you'll take better, more efficient notes.

3. Go to lecture. (Some people will say this is stupid, but I disagree). Why? You're paying money for this, so get the most out of it. Call me old-fashioned, but I think it is disrespectful to the instructor to skip lectures...believe it or not, you'll be suprised at how many professors enjoy teaching. This might come in handy later when you may need a letter of recommendation or help on a particular subject.

4. Don't assume you will be spoon-fed information, i.e.." Welcome to the real world". Your success or failure begins and ends with you.

5. Make sure you have fun...Enuff said

loo

 

[Triangulation]

Stay organized. School is way more complex than it was even a few years ago. We use two different online education systems, have two different break out groups, all the usual lecture courses, mandatory traning sessions, externships, extra-credit health screenings, and constant e-mails that need to be read. Student orgs that you need to be a part of. You've gotta be able to wade through all of that.

 

[simplyanny]

It's been 3 weeks in the hectic school papers/tests and I am now finally able to breath a little...thanks guys for these wonderful info! Lots of work to look foward to in P school it seems, but with determination and a love for pharmacy everything shall be okay, right?


best luck to school work for all!