placement log day 1 + 2

For a week I am having placement at my local pharmacy to become acquainted with the nature of community pharmacy. I've started dispensing and (VERY BRIEF) counselling and this is a log of my activities for future reflection.

DAY 1 

At this stage I'd already had several 2hr weekly placements. The advantage of full day placements is that you see a wider spectrum work. Not much happens in 2 hours; if it's a busy hour maybe several scripts come through and you see a mad rush. Maybe 1 or 2 interesting things happen but it's not enough to get a good scope on what the full responsibilities and tasks of a pharmacist entail.

Yesterday I was able to learn the software to dispense from start to end. I found that once I was able to understand the work flow, dispensing became much easier. The data input wasn't always intuitive and I made plenty of mistakes, which brought to my attention all the possible ways a dispensing could go wrong (there are so many). After much hair pulling and stressing, I decided it was time to understand the different types of scripts - pharm+patient copy vs duplicates vs medicare copies vs repeats - and patient claims - C/G/AC/AUG etc. We were flat out busy but the pharmacist found time in between scripts to explain to me the different categorising of patients under medicare, and the safety net for PBS drugs. It's a big picture but he was patient and now that there is some kind of context for the scripts, I feel that it's easier to power through the process.

So yesterday's emphasis was on the dispensing work flow.

I felt uncomfortable being unable to counsel patients on their medications and it doesn't look like there's an easy way into it; I've just got to learn the CMIs I suppose... Oh fun times ahead. It's hard not to notice the disparity between the quality of counselling expected by the university vs the quality of actual counselling IRL. Scenario/hypothetical patients have way more time and patience than real life patients and during busy times, it feels almost impossible to counsel; at my level, anyway. If I could gun through a couple of questions that would probably be enough, but as I mentioned earlier I would have to be able to jump into counselling the medication by heart. So, it looks like I've got some CMIs to read.

I've also got the Competency Standards Framework (PSA) to learn but for now I am tired and the practical learning is much more appealing.

Other things I observed during day 1 included:

• S8 dispensing - patient request for oxycodone slow release 
• compounding - this was also vastly different from uni compounding. I helped make a salicylic acid cream and a glycerol/emulsifying wax moisturiser. It's kinda gritty and we winged it a bit with the packaging but it worked out. The rules are not rules outside of the institution and you are your own medicine's creator. (there are laws though)
• near theft - somebody tried to steal something????? losing the head pharmacist as he left to follow up sneaky people meant that the dispensary fell to near chaos momentarily before picking up again. 

Time goes by quickly in the dispensary and it's not until I finish and I'm on my way home that I realise I am exhausted. 

DAY 2

I wanted to really consolidate the dispensing workflow that I started yesterday and the pharmacist was happy to let me romp around and do my thing. Again, more mistakes made, more lessons learnt. From now on for new patients I think I'll request the medicare card. Although repeats have the MC#, it doesn't have the DOB and it just becomes a hassle moving back and forth from the computer to the patient. Not to mention that they wouldn't always be there, and it looks like I don't have my shit together. When that happened though, one of the girls who worked there stepped in and actually called up Medicare to confirm a patients MC#. It was really good to watch and learn from that. I also met another girl in my cohort - small world! It was so pleasant working with the girls, we shared the workload and helped each other collecting and preparing the medications.

I didn't really have time to look at the domains today but I was busy dispensing, placing stock, and I did some webster packing towards the end of the day. I spoke in Mandarin!!? I don't even speak that language but some patients had no English in them so I forced some rubbish out and they were able to make some sense of it. It was such a funny situation! I might consider practising it properly eventually. 

When medications are out of stock in the dispensary, we sometimes call up the neighbouring one to borrow their stock. Today I did my own run for some prescription cream but forgot to take the exchange slip... Luckily it's only 2 minutes away and I ran back before anyone else realised my mistake. Honestly I feel like I have to make mistakes for something important to be engrained in my mind... As long as the consequences do no harm to anybody I don't really mind. If anything it puts an emphasis on particular processes and considerations. 

There were some mistakes that I wasn't too pleased with making. Towards the end of the day my energy was spent; I hadn't eaten lunch and I was kept busy all day so errors started showing and for one script I hadn't even picked up on the authority number. Some things are more obvious than others, but I knew that the day was going to be done soon, before I made any serious mistakes. 

These 2 days have been a good learning experience. There are still things I want to learn about the system - the typical day too, but I want a picture bigger than that. For now I sleep. 

Queen B

So I never properly listened to Beyonce until last week when I fell into an awful slump and holy jesus did she turn my week around. It must've been a combination of her tunes + me reaching the end of my tether, but I am absolutely certain that her voice is magical. No doubt about it. I would've lingered on the problem for even longer otherwise. 2821 got me so bogged down in confusion it felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel and just no place for it in the bigger picture. Thankfully it makes a bit more sense now but I've still miles to go.

Sistahs gotta stick 2gether. Girl power woohoo.

Also, a new header! The previous one was kinda ugly and I didn't like it anyway. This one's a bit of a return to the first one and I'm enjoying it a muuch more. Simple, but not static. I might have just realised that that's the kind of life I hope for, which gives me the perfect segue into what I wanted to talk about: life right now.

There's been an atmosphere slowly growing around certain people and lately it's starting to become toxic. What's worse is having to share the breathing space with them. The generational and cultural gap is widening and becoming more apparent in my family.

Sometimes I feel like I can't stand my sister but at times like these I (hopefully she does too) realise we're in the same boat. Things that my mum/grandma say are just so fucking shocking yet their attitudes are incorrigible and Lily and I end up on the receiving end of a narrow-minded reeducation. I guess the proper thing to do would be to just keep my head down until I can move out but I'm going to note this as a very distinct change in my own attitudes. I'm fairly sure that this time last year the plan was to just stick around home and take my time saving up until I could be financially comfortable on my own. Maybe I've matured, maybe it's just become more obvious or intolerable now that we're all in closer proximity, but I want out. I'm sure Lily wants out too and if money were no object we would be so out.

I understand that it's a cultural thing for the hierarchy to be the way it is but given that we are getting older and they brought us up to think, they were way too optimistic to expect us not to question authority. We do have valid ideas, but if they're unwilling to consider change or /empathise/ then whatever that's how they are, old people, middle aged people. I'll just stay under the radar. Hopefully the narrow mindedness isn't genetic. Considering that it's infected 2 generations though.. hah.

In other news, I feel like I'm directing way too much effort in being grumps towards other people. Maybe to much effort to begin with. I just imagine everyone's busy concentrating on their own stuff and I'm bugging people left/right/centre because I can't deal with being by myself for a few weeks. Right about now the doubts start rising and they tell me to depend on no one, abandon attachment, expect little, and find a cat who will love me forever. Joy. I miss my people.

Holidays come at meeeeee plsletmepassthough.

Also fuck CD.

HNMR of caffeine. Drug of choice for the next week. 

Terrigal

DAY 1

It was a busy morning. A trip to the optometrist's for Lily's contacts and then a train ride back to where I used to live. I decided against bringing my book and kept myself entertained on my phone. I was almost giddy with excitement at the thought of travelling, but at the same time, I couldn't shake off the dissonance that came from travelling both away from and towards what I thought of as home.

Terrigalz & boiz met up with me and we were off to pick up Justine from the Hills, aka middle of nowhere (luv u justine). It was a fairly short drive along an assortment of freeways and highways that ran past lakes and national parks and through carved out mountains. I felt so close to all the people in the car despite having not seen them for almost a month and it felt so natural to just pick up from where we left off.

We sat in the car and waited as Jason sorted out the keys to the rental house. Everybody was gradually becoming restless and hungry; the afternoon crept by and a few of us had barely eaten. A few of us were itching to explore the beach. We spent the afternoon lounging around and unpacking. Night time, pasta for dinner and more problems with the stove. We still managed to prepare a tasty meal for everybody with the barbeque and afterwards, we learnt how to play mafia. Those who knew the rules argued relentlessly until those who didn't know the rules started to grow bored. Eventually though, we did play and it quickly had everybody on their toes. Some of us fired accusations all over, while others sat, feigning ignorance, disinterest. It was so interesting to watch and learn how everyone acted and deceived one another. We made each other do dares and it evolved into a game of disgusting ways to eat tomato sauce. Also just disgusting stuff in general. It was a good night.

DAY 2

We were off to a late start - everybody slept in and could barely bring themselves to leave the house. I felt completely defeated a few times when I tried to get people to go out with me, only to have people respond "no" or  "it's cold outside" without looking up from their phones. After a late breakfast though, people eventually did amble to the beach. It wasn't a memorable or particularly enjoyable day, although Shao/Justine/I did walk out along the right stretch of the beach to reach the rock pools and cliff. It was lovely out on the beach but we didn't stray too far. We stayed until sundown and had a relaxing stroll back home, where we made hot pot for dinner and baked cookies for dessert. Everybody was bursting from all the dinner and junk food and we played mafia again. We endured a painful screening of Quarantine and then put on White Chicks to cheer ourselves up afterwards. I fell asleep through the second movie and woke up on the communal mattress in the living room the next morning, completely forgetting how I got there.

DAY 3

 

Definitely the most memorable, but because of both good and bad happenings. It was a late morning again, and everybody's laziness pretty much snowballed and led to everyone just waiting around for each other, playing games on their phone. It felt rather sad; having driven out this far to live near such a wonderful place only to surrender ourselves to the confines of the house. I mean, it was comfortable, sure, but it was a fucking waste of time to just sit around. Jennifer clearly felt the same way and ended up having a go at a few people which finally kicked us into action, thank goodness.

We went to the same place on the beach, running in and out of the closest waves. I tripped backwards and landed on my back, covering my phone and camera with sand. It was absolutely devastating and I was worried sick for the next 15 minutes as I tried to clean myself and my things up. Everything was managed to be salvaged and I'd gotten tired of spending all my time in the same place. We hardly saw the rest of the beach, and there were rocks that stretched away and then out of view. I walked in the direction of the rocks on my own as everybody was content with staying where they were. They should've come though; the views were amazing, the coastline was mesmerising and it was just so pleasant to explore. I spent the rest of the afternoon by myself. At first I was trying to shake off my agitation at the rest, but after I calmed down and just tried to be in the moment and take in everything around me, I found myself loving every minute from then on.

The rocks made the terrain look almost otherwordly. From a few places where I stood, the water sat completely still in the rock pools and reflected the sky perfectly. Waves crashed up, threatening to knock over anything that strayed too close to the edge of the cliffs. The smell of salt filled my nose and the sound of the waves filled my ears. It was such a wonderful afternoon. Around the other side of the beach, I followed up the hills behind the cliffs and saw the beautiful horizon as the sun slipped below. I walked past dozens of locals with their dogs. I don't think I've ever been jealous of a dog before but I thought them incredibly lucky to be able to live by such a beautiful area and with families that love spending time with them there. Even I had trouble dragging my bunch of people out of the house that morning (they're still gr8 tho).

After it got dark, I returned home by way of the lolly shop. I bought some rock candy and bonbons to share with Dom but as it stands, I've already opened it and given a few to Lily. I've also eaten a few.

I'm not sure what it was that night, but the laksa and pasta for dinner was so delicious. So delicious. I hadn't enjoyed Asian food like that laksa in such a long time. We had a great post-dinner bonding time, I showed a few people my photos from the afternoon, and we pulled out the sparklers. I'm not sure where the energy came from, but we went all out with our cameras that night. Selfies, photoboms, silly faces; left, right, centre. I bet it was what those zoo animals felt like when they discovered how to take photos of themselves with cameras they stole off people. It was so much fun though.

We wound down to a quiet-ish night and then brought out the monopoly. Smores were to be had and after a long, hearty chat with Justine and Judy, we finally fell asleep hours before we had to be up again. 

DAY 4

Driving home. Well, driving Justine home first. The drive back was probably more fun than the drive there. I had my music going, which I guess Justine enjoyed as well. We played a bit of house, but the real party began when we pulled out the Queen, ABBA, NSYNC playlist. It was such a ball singing and dancing in the back seat. The other car could only wish they were having so much fun. I recorded a few videos out the window and the others played prank calls on the other car, screaming funny sounding city names into the phone every time every time we came across a new one. It became a cacophany of "moony moony moony moony" or "woy woy woy woy woy" and all our sides were hurting from the laughter. It was a good ride.

After reaching Justine's place, we had lunch at a shopping complex nearby before taking Justine home again. Jason fumbled with the GPS as we were leaving, and we ended up waving goodbye to Justine and her mum for a good couple of minutes and just laughing until we were hurting again because nobody stopped waving, and we weren't moving. Jason ended up just driving off to another street before figuring out the rest of the way.

We drove through the main street in Granville with my window open, filling the car with the smell of charcoal chicken.

I feel like I've come out of this trip knowing who I am able to better get along with. Closer friends have emerged while my attitude towards a few other people have changed, much to my surprise. Being within such close proximity to a group of people probably strains every facet of a friendship no matter how close each party already was. At least for now and probably until uni starts up again, we can all agree that we've had enough of each other's company.

(-:

 Good morning

Passing through Leightonfield on the btown line. I won't be heading back that way for a while.

I'll miss this (but not much else).

Lights out 

Fog on the first week.

My exams are approaching... which can only mean a remission into blogging! This year has darted right past and given me a good whack on the head with a million things happening at once. Summary tomorrow, sleep now. 

Foals - Moon

Though I prefer this video, I wasn't able to properly embed - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ76FacRveg 

I discovered it just last week and it is definitely my favourite off the album. It'd be my song of choice in the event of a great calamity, just playing in the background during the eye of the storm. Everything around me is cast away, decimated. I imagine myself terribly alone but in my mind, I am calm. 

Yep, that's the vibe I get from this song, and that might have something to do with the state of mind I'm in at the mo. Maybe it's helped me realise it, I'm not entirely sure. 

Outside

 

• The 2 hour train ride
• Listening to Outro by Govett's Leap
• The fog in Katoomba as we crossed the waterfall and climbed down the Giant's Steps (?)
• Catching the ferry
• That god damn sun
• That side of the cliff we couldn't climb
• Goodbye Haruka