APPE Tips

I'm going to preface this with: these are only my opinions based on my own experience and what my friends and I discuss. This is more a comical recollection of "don't let this happen to you..."

So... APPEs (Advanced pharmacy practice experience) is the year where we pay the school money to work for free. Depending on your school and your experiences, it feels like slave labor (aka doing things you do as an intern in the community for pay) OR it can be an amazing learning experience.

I've only had a few rotations so far and I've experienced both ends of the spectrum. I've been bored to death at a community pharmacy because they ran out of things to show me and I've been driven into the ground with work in an overwhelming, yet amazing learning experience.

Tips for surviving your APPE...

1) DON'T be an asshole. Seriously, even if you think you know everything, you probably don't. You're here to learn, they're here to teach you. Pharmacy is a small, small world. Don't burn your bridges.
1b) Don't talk back to your preceptor. If s/he says, "look something up", just go do it. If you have to look up a lot of stuff, chances are you need to brush up on your stuff. Don't throw back attitude and say "why don't YOU look it up?

I know those two seem like common sense... but from collective experiences... common sense is severely lacking for some.

2) If you're going to do a journal club or case presentation... be prepared to know it inside and out. Especially if you have a challenging preceptor. Be thorough and concise. No one wants to sit through a 2 hour case presentation full of arbitrary information.

3) SPELL CHECK. For the love of god. Spell check everything.

4) Be personable. Ask questions when you don't know about something. Like didactics, this experience is partly what YOU make of it. If you're going to sulk in a corner, it's going to be a long shitty block. Try and interact with everyone there. Chances are you're bound to at least connect with someone in the pharmacy.

5) DO NOT ask for extensions (unless an unforeseen emergency like a family illness or the like occurs). Deadlines are given in advance for a reason... learn to manage your time. It makes you look really unreliable and irresponsible if you're constantly asking for extensions. I'd probably pull an all nighter (difficult at my old age) before requesting an extension.

6) If you have a special interest, try and see if you can pursue that, but do not act like a 5 year old on a temper tantrum if the preceptor would prefer another project. You're going to need to be well rounded for boards anyways and you never know what you could fall in love with.

And now I'm sleepy... (APPE narcolepsy) perhaps there'll be a part II some day.

Done!

And just like that, the didactic portion of my pharmacy career is over. The only thing that stands between myself and my pharmD are my advanced rotations!

It's so surreal. The past three years have seemingly disappeared in the blink of an eye. A very long, painful, stressful, exhausting blink. It's bittersweet really, saying goodbye to the people that have become my family over the past 3 years. I've grown so much as a person over the past few years. I had my setbacks just like everyone else, but I'm at such a wonderful place in my life right now. I'm hangin' up the #2 pencil reserved for exams and kinetics problems and replacing it with my favorite pen.

In the words of Barney Stinson, it's time to suit up! I'm terrified really. I'll be asked opinions on real living, breathing patients. There will be many trials and tribulations I'm sure, but I'm almost mentally prepared for it all.

As for the special lady I mentioned in my last post... things are going well. She makes me smile every day and helped pull me through those last few weeks of hell. She fits into my life so seamlessly sometimes I wonder how I ever did without her. I can see myself falling for her and the thought scares me a little, but when she flashes me that smile of hers, I know I'm a goner. We've had our rough patches and I'm sure there will be more, but she's been such a positive addition to my life.

Whoops

So it looks like I gave you an update very early in the fall and suddenly it's a month away from the end of my didactic career! My apologies to anyone who has been waiting for an update.

Third year has been an intense whirlwind. I feel like I catch up only to fall quickly behind again. A lot of people tell me second year is the hardest year, but at my school third year definitely takes the cake on difficulty. I've been challenged again and again to balance my studies with my organizations and with my jobs.  I've learned a lot about myself and other this year and I wish I had the time to share all the tiny little moments that changed my views on life this year.

I'm battling a hard case of senioritis right now and struggling to catch up. It's been a difficult home stretch for me personally. I've had to struggle with a lot of personal events that turned my life upside down while struggling to stay afloat in school. But I won't bore you with the negativity.

I wanted to share my excitement (and fear, lots and lots of fear) about finally going on rotations. I've got some amazing blocks at some great hospitals and I'm excited for my final year and all that I will hopefully be able to learn from it. Even with all the negativity that I've felt hold me down thus far I still have to realize all the good that has come of it.

I also met a girl. It's really too soon to say how it may go or way things are headed, but she makes me smile and really brightens up my day. I think she's the best part of this dreary home stretch I've been on. When I get a text from her I start smiling like a fool and I feel like in that moment my mood instantly improves.The only downside is that she is very distracting. I really adore that she kind of helps keep me on track and actually cancels plans we have so I can study so that I don't have to. My friends have also begun to hide my cell phone to keep the texting to a minimum during our study sessions.  I'm excited and (terrified) of how things may or may not progress... but as always I have to keep my chin up and take things as they go.

I guess all in all I'm still happy. I have my bad days like everyone else, but I am keeping my head above water and taking things one day at a time.

Summers over? :(

Well this is a bit late. Summer has been over for a bit. I feel like I got back to school and barely had time to hit the ground running. Surprisingly after a summer of lazing about, working, and doing a lot of nothing (best break ever!) I fell back into the routine of chicken with no head quite quickly. I think it helps that I had meetings prior to school starting so it kind of got me back into that mindset. The first few weeks of fall are always the roughest. All organizations have meetings about recruiting and general meetings soon after to keep membership up so it's like a whirlwind of meetings and then before you know it, it's exam time.

I think I've lost my mind. I'm an officer for several organizations, taking a full credit load (I maxed out my elective credits), and I have my pharmacy job that I work 13 hours every other week, plus my work study job at school that's about 5 hours a week (not much). And that's not even to the point where I think I've gone off the deep end.

I think I've gone off the deep end because I am thinking about taking on a third job as a school tutor. Money has been a little tight and I am doing a lot as a P-3 from campus things to conferences and unfortunately those conferences cost money. I don't max out on my student loans because I consider it something way too frivolous when I know I don't need all of it. However, I think I may have gone slightly too conservatively. I've always had the mindset of, take what you need for the essentials- tuition, rent, and food. Whatever else you want to spend money on, you work to pay for it.

It's really all the same as my first two years of pharm school. I think I may have bit off more than I can chew this time. I really hope I can handle everything I seem to have gotten myself into this year.

So what do you think? Yay or nay to the tutoring gig?

Honey boo boo child

Sure, most of us have seen that crazy video about the child beauty queen that chugs mountain dew like a fiend. I’ll admit that I laughed at that video and how ridiculous this all was. But now I’m terrified. They are giving this kid and her family a TV show.

Seriously? I know we are a country of cheap laughs and mind rotting reality TV, but really all we’re doing by giving people like this a TV show is to reward and encourage this idiotic behavior. What kind of message are we sending to these people and everyone in the US? That being stupid, obnoxious, and annoying as hell is awesome?

Personally, I’m not a fan of reality TV. Everything that embodies reality TV infuriates me. I like having a good time just as much as everyone else, but all reality TV is about is encouraging narcissism and idiotic behavior among my peers.

I think what annoys me the most is that our country rewards idiocy and perpetuates the horrible reputation that everyone else in the world has about Americans. Why do we not value education like we do sports? The average American reads at a 3^rd grade level, and that’s being generous. Don’t get me wrong, I love sports. I played a number of sports growing up through high school. I played in a work league after I graduated from college. I love sports, but I don’t believe that people should value sports above education.

Sorry… I’ll get off my soap box now, but this whole thing just really irritated me. 

Actual Vacation!

I finally went on an actual vacation! One that involved no work (ok, I did have a conference call on the way to the airport and minor loose ends),  no school work, no one yelling at me, I had a week a wonderful week away from the monotony of living at home for the summer and working in retail.

I feel wonderful. I didn't get to do everything I wanted to, but I do have a new dive buddy back home and I am preparing for a few dives before summers end. I still can't believe it's nearly the end of July. I am not ready to be stuck in a classroom all day. Don't get me wrong, I love school, but I'm not ready to be chained to the library again.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

SSDD

My poor neglected blog. I don't know what it is, but while out of school I find myself rarely on my computer. Sure, my smart phone is like an extension of my arm, but I rarely turn on my laptop and peruse the internet like I would in school. I guess that's what happens when you aren't trying to procrastinate every second of every day.

That and I really have nothing new to share. I've spent most of the summer working and spending time with family and trying to get back into shape. At this point I feel like I need a vacation from summer break, or maybe I just need an actual vacation. Actually what I need is a day (or three) where I can just lock myself in my room alone and read. I love being social, but I think I am at my limit and need some hermit time to recoup.

You know what I hate about community pharmacy? How it never fails that at 1 minute to closing someone will come in and one or both of the following will happen:

A) they need 5+ Rx's to fill (from like 4 days ago) that absolutely has to be filled RIGHT THIS MOMENT OR I'M GONNA DIE. And all I want to do is drop the metal door down and run.
B) person above will either have never been here before and suddenly have no idea which is their rx insurance card OR they have and don't have their new insurance card OR some other insurance headache

My favorite is that I've had two patients in the last week try to tell me that if I call their insurance company the insurance company will lower their copay. BAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA. What. Welcome to the real world, what am I supposed to say?! You want a lower copay why don't you complain and see how long it takes before your insurance company laughs at you. One actually said to me, "you must be new at this. If you just call the insurance company and tell them to charge me less, they will."

I nearly fell over laughing after he finally left. If shit like that actually worked, I wouldn't feel like a douchebag for having to charge an obscene amount of money for a poor person that needs their cancer medication because their insurance company is charging them a couple grand for a copay because I could get them to lower it. I always feel like an asshole, even though there's really nothing I can do about it and I'm really just the price messenger.