Like the weather about deciding whether this was a week of gloom or sun, I also was equally as ambivalent about whether this was one of the better or worst weeks of the quarter. We had a guest lecturer in biochem who outlined the mechanisms of lipid metabolism and cholesterol synthesis. Since the last time I have taken biochem, it seems there has been progress towards understanding how cholesterol negatively feedbacks on the rate limiting step in cholesterol synthesis and a certain type of lipoprotein receptors. He seemed to have a wicked sense of humor: the whole room was laughing when he enthusiatically talked about how cool this unusual sequential cyclization step of squalene toward cholesterol involved atmospheric oxygen and an epoxide. We could have been delirious from sleep deprivation as well.
The downpoint was Clinical Pharmacy when we had to endure physical assessment, psychiatric assessment, and patient adherence lectures. And these series of lectures are just too vague to really apply seriously. (Example: What do you think the condition of a woman with a large belly is? Pregnant). Currently, pharmacists are not be able to diagnose so we are all wondering why he is teaching us these semi-common sense methods of assessing people's condition. I mean Ron Finley seems like an alright guy, but we need a very structured style of lecture to know specific material we need to study and retain for our future careers.
In contrast to Finley, we were lucky enough to participate in a Pulmonary inhalation workshop held by the renown Robin Corelli. I thought it was a great idea for each of us to have the opportunity to counsel faculty members and be critiqued about our performances. I honestly that I can speak for my classmates that we all can counsel patients on the differences between using the albuterol pressurized metered dose inhalers from Advair diskus from handihalers.
In APha, we met with Lori Rice and shuffled ideas for ledge day, to educate pharmacy students about current developments in pharmacy law. Rice is quite brilliant with knowing how to create a vision and taking steps to drive it forward. She took our brainstorm of topics like direct to consumer marketing or universal health care. She may even be able to get Gavin Newson to come and speak to UCSF, which would really let students participate in the policy process. Hopefully, he has an interest in getting our support since we are all old enough to vote. Hopefully we can show him and the city that we are not too busy filling prescriptions to speak up about our views about whether we should be selecting which drugs will be blockbusters or which will be recalled simply by making recommendations, conflict of interest between promoting a retail store generics vs. the brand name, and what should be done to formalize a reuse program to take care of the unexpired unused drugs in the city. A lot of ideas in the works.
A number of us attended a lecture held about emergency contraception and how to legally dispense it in California. Since the beginning of 2007, we can dispense Plan B OTC to anyone over 18 years. For minors, we have to be trained and pass a test online to prove it. We would have to register our pharmcy on the Pharmacy Access Partnership website so that women could find which pharmacies sell it. But the trick is that our supervising pharmacist must also be EC trained if we want to do the counseling. Since this med is somewhat controversial, the curriculum does not include certification and we must go through our student organizations to arrange training outside of class.
Beyond anxiety over transitioning to becoming pharmacists, I am visiting my friend in the hospital after his surgery virtually every day until 8 or 9pm at Mount Zion. I saw such an improvement in his condition when he was switched from morphine to toradol. But the impact on your body after this kind of major surgery is the equivalent of having the pick up truck slammed into your abdomen. I just imagine having my organs readjusting in position and how the strain on the nerves attached to your internal organs can be mindblowingly painful. Painkillers could not deaden every single one of those nerves, at the most like 30-40% of them. And I even talked to my parents afterwards about how difficult it was for me to see my friend so helpless at a grown age and struggling sustain even the shallowest breath. I am not sure if I could be around people in this condition every day in my life, which would be my life if I wanted to be a clinical pharmacist.
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