Last July, I flew to
Melbourne to experience a semester abroad as an exchange student. During those
5 months, I had the opportunity to spend one week in a community pharmacy, and
one week in a hospital pharmacy, to learn the ropes of what pharmacists do in
their daily working life.
Community Placement
The community pharmacy was
located in Richmond, a small suburb to
the east of Melbourne. I honestly thought students wouldn’t be given much
responsibilities and it would be a pretty easy week, but I had no idea what was
in store for me. Just on the first day, my partner and I were already
overwhelmed with the seemingly easy, but tedious steps in dispensing
medicines to patients. In order to prevent any error in dispensing, we had to
be meticulous, checking all the details to make sure they’re right, and looking
up information about the medicine to make sure it is safe and suitable for the
patients’ needs.
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| Source: Inside Retail Australia |
Given our lack of experience, there were obviously lots of
patients waiting to get their prescriptions filled, and what normally would’ve
taken 5 minutes took 15 in our hands. Our
preceptors, who were supervising us, and also the patients were understanding
and also encouraging, which personally made me feel worse for slowing them
down. We were also given the chance to observe pharmacists calling up doctors
about errors they identified, or if they’re concerned about a particular medicine.
Hospital Placement
The hospital placement was
at the end of the semester, located in the Geelong suburb. As it was summer for Australia in
December, the increasing temperatures and the service disruptions were
reminiscent of my time in Malaysia. Despite the bush fires and train cancellations,
I had the most fun in this placement because of the knowledge I’ve gained, and
also the friendships I've fostered with the peers
who were also placed in Geelong. Given my prior experience, or lack thereof, I
was determined to excel this week, and leave a good impression to my
preceptors.
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| Source: Hospital Stays |
Eight of us were split into pairs and given different departments
to shadow for a week. As it was our first hospital placement, our roles were
mostly observational in nature, but my preceptor had confidence in our
abilities and allowed us to take on more responsibilities while he supervised. We
communicated with patients upon admission and upon discharge, and counselled
them on any medications that they will be going home with. One notable thing I did was calling a
community pharmacy and asked for their dispensing records in order to verify
information given by the patient. As we followed our preceptor around, we also
attended discharge meetings, which proved the necessity of communication
between different health care professionals.
These placements allowed me
to get an idea of my future career, and without a doubt were the highlights of my exchange programme and
I would love to spend more time back in Australia.
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