my feelings upon completion of day 12 at the hospital

When we have to staff weekends we do not get days off during the week like staff pharmacists do... as residents we just work straight through which means 12 days between weekends.  Now, fortunately, I only have to work every third weekend so this 12 day business isn't consistent... some of the other residents in the city have to work every other weekend which means they are always in the process of working a 12 day stretch... eww.

Anyway, now that my first long haul is over, I have a huge feeling of relief... I have never been so excited to be able to sleep in.  I know we aren't putting in the kind of hours that medical residents do but getting up and being to work by 6:30am everyday for 12 days is a big difference from life prior to residency.  I discussed this with one of my co-resies and we decided that the biggest difference is how much more tired we are after a normal day's work.  Things are great but I am tired every single day.  We decided that it must be the extra stress that comes with being real pharmacists now with no one to necessarily double check our work... everything we do is so real now and it affects patients in a big way and just spending 8 or more hours a day with that makes me so strangely exhausted...  So, thankfully I get a weekend now to recuperate so I can be refreshed for Monday :-)

A cool thing happened today -- I got my official pharmacist white coats with my name on them :-)  I know I've said it before but this really was the last piece of the puzzle and I really am totally legit now!  I have the name tag, the pharmacist tag, the pager, the office/desk space/computer, the scrubs for the weekend, the LICENSE,  and now the personalized white coats :-)  This is going to be a long and tiring year but it is also going to be so so so exciting :-)

goodnight

my new toy

so I finally decided on a new phone and as the fates would have it my contract was up for upgrade :-)  I have been looking at this phone for a long time and now that I have it I can say it is totally worth the hype.  I didn't get the laptop dock for it although it seems kind of cool... too expensive for the amount of time I'd use it I think.  Anyway, the phone is super fast and has a great screen and typing on it is pretty easy... overall, learning the new OS wasn't bad at all... a few tricks that didn't seem totally intuitive but after you figure a few things out everything else just comes naturally.

In addition to this cool new phone, I also was one of 20 lucky employees to get a free copy of Lexi-Comp for my phone.  Tomorrow hopefully I will get the info and get it downloaded :-)  Now all I need is my white coats to come in and I will be so legit.

I have to work this weekend which means I will have worked 12 days in a row before I get a day off... that concept is not really my favorite.  BUT, I only have to work every 3rd weekend so it isn't like it's all the time...  I'm still not convinced that I can get the clinical book done in less than like 6 hours but I'm hoping for the best... I have 4 more days to practice with someone else there so hopefully that is enough time for me to get a handle on things.

Ok, well, 5am comes awfully early so I think I'm off to bed.

Goodnight happy bloggers/readers :-)

the new layout

is super pharmtastic :-)  more changes may be in the works... we'll see...

This week was pretty good as far as the residency goes... I worked evenings and that was a challenge but I am feeling better about the staffing stuff.  Last weekend I did the strengthsfinder 2.0 assessment and found out my top 5 words...

analytical
relator
responsibility
significance
intellection

That's me in 5 words.  Tomorrow we are going over to one of the preceptors houses for dinner and a discussion of this book so I anticipate I'll have more to say about my words after that.

I think that's all for now... feel free to comment on the new layout :-)

reflections on the first week

I survived :-)


No, really it has been a great start.  I am pretty overwhelmed about my staffing weekends but I feel like there will be sufficient time in my training to become comfortable with things before I'm left on my own.  Also, the general amount of things that I will need to be doing on any given day is quite significant.  I feel like I will be heavily relying on my calendar and a very well kept "to-do" list in order to successfully not forget something each and every day.


This month we are basically shadowing various staff pharmacists and then also going to lots of meetings and learning the basics to keep us alive from day to day.  I am attempting to remain calm :-)