Last Friday was my first day working as a pharmacist all by myself. I was the "Front" pharmacist which meant my primary responsibility was checking things. There is a lot to check! I had been training for over a week in that position, but Friday happened to be a busy day and we were one pharmacist short, making my task that much harder. Before even an hour into the shift I felt like I was being pulled in 3 different directions between new orders being started, narcotics to check, and the Pyxis pull to refill the automated dispensing machines around the hospital. Thankfully, around the middle of the day things calmed down just enough for me to feel in control.
This was my first weekend to work as well. Thomas and I made plans a couple months ago to go see our wedding venue set up for a wedding this July and since it happened to be this weekend, I got out of working Saturday. (It was super helpful to see the space, more on that in my next entry!) Anyways, Sunday felt busy again, and all these extra responsibilities kept popping up. For example, our IV pharmacist went upstairs for a hour or two to make some chemo and that left me to check IVs as well as the oral/topical medications. And since there isn't a pharmacist at the Orthopaedic hospital on the weekends, I had to check their cart fill (a 24 hour supply of medications for each patient) as well as the Main hospitals. It was too bad, it was just startling to realize I had all these other things to do when I already felt overwhelmed.
Training has its ups and downs. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks when I can concentrate on order entry and start to feel like I'm really contributing to the team. One of the criticisms I received over my last year in pharmacy school is that I'm too hard on myself and not patient enough with myself when trying to learn a new skill. I don't like doing things wrong even though I know you learn from your mistakes, so I am trying very hard to be patient with myself for the next few weeks (ahem, months) of training.
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