Pretending to be a Pharmacist...

First day of my last year of school and whew am I mentally pooped.  Today Katie and I got up a little earlier than usual so we would have plenty of time to commute to the hospital.  Thank goodness we got up early because we got to take cheesy single pics of what we wore for our first day and got to watch a funny situation go down on the Thames River.  So we are walking across the bridge, with the sun shining and Big Ben behind us (I know, it’s a rough life), but as we are walking we notice everyone across the street waving and staring down into to the river.  Also we hear creepy ice cream truck kind of music blaring and helicopters circling above us.  Katie’s first thought is it’s someone royal! However, we found out as we waited in eager anticipation, it was just an ice cream boat with a funny man dancing around with ice cream cones in his hands.  Either this is a big deal in the UK or they were filming a commercial because there was also a camera crew/paparazzi boat floating along beside it.   Those crazy Brits!

Then we head into St. Thomas where, duh, I took a picture in front of it.  I mean it was my first day, thus it was a must!  First off, our new friend Lisa the secretary showed us around the central pharmacy and chatted with us until Anna, our preceptor, was ready.  As we were sitting in the main office with Lisa we taught her to use the word ya’ll.  She is catching on and by the time we leave she will be a Southern speaking British citizen born in South Africa with Italian and Hungarian parents.  Talk about multi-cultural.

 Then it was time to meet with Anna.  I don’t think she really knows what to think of us, but we told her we wanted to experience everything while we are on rotation.  Katie really wants to go into some surgeries while I want to work in the children’s hospital and in the HIV clinic.  I think we are going to learn a ton while here for a month.  After doing some basic paper work, it was time to make working there official…we got ID badges with our pictures on them!  I know that is really dumb, but I love mine.  I feel very official and professional.  Haha! 

After getting our badges, Anna showed us all around to different sects of the hospital and all where to eat.  She made a big point to show us where to eat.  I guess she really likes her lunch break?  But as she showed us around and introduced us to different people, it was a real kick to see peoples expressions when she said “and this is Katy and Katie, the American students.”  Everyone always made a funny remark about our names being the same and how easy it would be to remember who we were.  This one man we kept running into all day would always say “why hello Katy and Katie.”  It is funnier in person by the way he would say it and because of his British accent.  After showing us around, Anna dropped us off in an office to do a lot of reading on different protocols that are set up in the hospital, like how to wash your hands.  This is a really big deal to them and if you really want to know I can give you the set by set run down on the proper way to wash your hands.  I bet 90% of yall aren’t doing it right and never even knew!

After a good bit of reading, Katie and I took our lunch break.  We grabbed sandwiches from the convenient/grocery store in the hospital and sat outside on a bench because it was a gorgeous day and I didn’t want to waste our time inside.  It was brilliant and smashing!   After lunch we thought Anna was going to take us up to the wards, but she had a meeting so we got on the computer and read through their formulary.  We know, we are nerds, but honestly it helped us recall a lot about the drugs we will encounter and to see what differences there were between the UK and the US.  If you didn’t know there are a lot of differences!

About an hour later, Anna took us up to the wards that we will be working in, actually starting tomorrow.  First we hit up Sarah Swift, which at first Katie and I thought was a pharmacist we would be working with, but no, it’s the name of the 9^th floor ward.  Up on the ward it was hoppin, smelt alittle funny, and was quite toasty.  Honestly, it made me feel alittle nauseous.  Anna explained in detail how everything worked and introduced us to more people.  Then we headed up to the next floor, Victoria Ward, which is the one I will primarily be on and Katie being on Sarah Swift.  Victoria is alittle smaller but more hectic because these patients are more critical to some degree.  After a run down, Anna went through a few patient cases with us.  It was so overwhelming.  I think the most overwhelming part was how she talked about things that yes we knew, but in such different terms that we didn’t really know what she meant.   We had to constantly ask her, now what do you mean by… and she would explain and we would always be like Ohhhhh, in the States we call it this…  That happened A LOT today!!  To some degree Katie and I felt that she expected us to know way more than we ever could have known.  I mean we have gone to school for the past 3 years, but in another country.  So duh, we don’t know the UK ways of pharmacy and to top it all off we have never had any hospital pharmacy experience (well at least I had not).  My 5 years with Walgreens sure didn’t prepare me for this environment.  Ha!

Right before we left the ward, Anna let us take a stab at a case by ourselves while she checked on a few patients.  We did ok for our first day, but I couldn’t help but think that I will never get the hang of this.  Anna then went through the patients files with us and discussed everything.  She reminded it us that we have a whole month and this is just for the experience.  Also I can always play the America card if I get really confused.  It is a legit excuse!  We then headed down to the central pharmacy for a learning meeting.  A nurse was giving a presentation on Parkinson’s drugs.  Honestly it was super boring because we didn’t understand half of what she was talking about and the other pharmacists were talking to the nurse about implementing new protocols for these medications.  I think Katie may have fallen asleep for a bit at one point.  Ha!  But as the meeting wrapped up, so had our first day at the hospital.  We survived!!!

To celebrate our first day, we headed to our favorite restaurant, Nando’s.  It is a delish chicken restaurant that has unlimited refills on cokes, aka heaven!  I had a veggie burger and mashed sweet potatoes.  Also since we have a punch card, I had enough punches (because I get other people to use it ha!) that I got a free ¼ of a chicken.  Random, I know, but it will make a yum lunch tomorrow at the hospital.  Actually after 10 punches, I get a WHOLE CHICKEN!!! I will take pictures, don’t worry.  Now Katie and I are going to watch an episode of Friends to finish the day right!  We are going to watch the episode, “the one in Barbados” where Joey and Rachel pretend to be pharmacists.  Fitting!  Sorry this is forever long, but I am not forcing you to read this…enjoy and cheers yall!