Blog 22: Senior Project Reflection

1) I am most proud of my final presentation. It is what I've been most dreading for all of my ipoly years and I finally overcame it. I am also glad I don't have to repeat it.

2a) P

b) P-

3) What worked were my interviews. They were helpful in answering my EQ, and were the only assignments I turned in all on time.

4) The blog was the worst. I wish I had taken time over the summer to learn how to use it.

5) What I gained from this experience was some friends at mentorship. I know this is odd but all the pharmacists at where I mentored all have become memorable. I hope to one day get a job there because I did shed on tear on my last day.

April Update

Hello there! I am not entering the final stretch in my senior project. My lesson template, research notes, mentorship hours, independent component hours, and project are all done and turned in. Now it's just the presentation

Blog 19: Independent Component 2

1a. I, Christian Demesa, affirm that I have completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

b. Jonathan Martinez, mentor.

c. Done

d. My work at the pharmacy involved looking at patient profiles, sitting in on meetings, sitting in on patient-doctor consultations, and observing the use of palliative care.

My component helped answer my EQ because looking at patient profiles helped give me an idea of what my first answer required, the two meetings I saw gave me examples and a launch pad for research for my second answer, and observing consultations helped support my foundation.

All photos that I could include are part of my February post. I could not include more photos of patient profiles and consultations.

Blog 20: Exit Interview

1. How can a clinical pharmacist best provide quality patient consultations?

A good consultation is achieved when a clinical pharmacist prepares for a meeting with the patient in which their personal history and issues are taken into account.

A good consultation is achieved when the doctor attends ongoing professional development by regularly attending meetings.

A good consultation is achieved when the doctor incorporates palliative care.

My best answer is my first answer.

2. The process I took was Mrs. Pittman help in focusing my question down followed by extensive reach online, at my mentorship, and with a psychologist for my third interview.

3. The problem I faced is my blog. I resolved it by talking to Carlos and having my girlfriend teach me how to post blogs.

4. Medical Records by Kendra Cherry and Types of Nonverbal Behavior by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. It helped answer what a CPP is and how patients nonverbal behavior could benefit doctors customize their consultations.

Blog 21: Mentorship

Literal

Jonathan Martinez:

(213)-253-26677 Ext. 4218 

Interpretive

From Mentorship I learned I am going to deal with a varied group of people. What I mean is that I will be facing a lot of diversity at college, medical school, and the workplace. Because I'm so shy around strangers, I tend to come off a little awkward or quiet. I learned how to approach strangers and talk to them. It also helped get over my anxiety around adults. I had to learn that the people at the hospital were both my role models and peers. It took a while for me to accept this but I'm grateful for mentorship because it gave me the chance to blossom.

Applied

I did a majority of menial tasks, but it did help understand the basis for my EQ. People think consultations are cut-and-dry, but in reality to get to that point, doctors must make time, appointments need to be made, and following consultations, pharmacists are in charge of organizing, ordering, and shipping medicine. My mentorship helped me answer my first and best answer the most because I seemed to naturally cling to it the most. I looke at a lot patient profiles, specific medication labels for blind people, sat in on consultations where a medical profile was used to help the pharmacist, double checked through all patients who had come in the last month and made sure their CPP had been updated. A lot of work but I do miss the people at the clinic.

Blog 21: Mentorship

Literal

Jonathan Martinez:

(213)-253-26677 Ext. 4218 

Interpretive

From Mentorship I learned I am going to deal with a varied group of people. What I mean is that I will be facing a lot of diversity at college, medical school, and the workplace. Because I'm so shy around strangers, I tend to come off a little awkward or quiet. I learned how to approach strangers and talk to them. It also helped get over my anxiety around adults. I had to learn that the people at the hospital were both my role models and peers. It took a while for me to accept this but I'm grateful for mentorship because it gave me the chance to blossom.

Applied

I did a majority of menial tasks, but it did help understand the basis for my EQ. People think consultations are cut-and-dry, but in reality to get to that point, doctors must make time, appointments need to be made, and following consultations, pharmacists are in charge of organizing, ordering, and shipping medicine. My mentorship helped me answer my first and best answer the most because I seemed to naturally cling to it the most. I looke at a lot patient profiles, specific medication labels for blind people, sat in on consultations where a medical profile was used to help the pharmacist, double checked through all patients who had come in the last month and made sure their CPP had been updated. A lot of work but I do miss the people at the clinic.

March Blog Update

Hi everybody! Nothing exciting has really happened and I have no pictures I can share due to confidentiality. Aside from that, mentorship is great, but finding research on my third answer is killing me!

Blog 18: Third Answer

1. How can a clinical pharmacist best provide quality patient consultations?

2. A good consultation is achieved when the pharmacist incorporates palliative care.

3. Palliative care is additional care that is meant to help patients with a chronic or serious illness, such as cancer. Palliative care is not a cure, but helps the patient on an emotional and spiritual level. Palliative care is unique because it aims at helping the patient and their family to continue living the best quality of life.

4. www.palliativedoctors.org/about/faq.html  www.cancer.org/aboutus/drlensblog/post/2010/08/20/the-unexpected-benefits-of-palliative-care.aspx www.patient.co.uk/doctor/palliative-care

5. Palliative care should be incorporated in modern clinical consultations because it has the potential to help desperate patients to continue to live, and to give them a chance to enjoy life.

February Blog pics

More pics I forgot to include from Valentine's Day

February Blog

Not really much happened in February for me. Just more mentorship and here are the pictures:

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

1. Volunteer at the V.A. specifically for meetings or consultations, and extra RC on medical manuals and patient psychoanalysis studies.

2. Getting a signature from my mentor on a spreadsheet and providing my extra RC.

3. Attending meetings or doing meeting minutes will allow me to help my answer 2, and doing extra research checks and viewing consultations will helps formulate my third answer.

4. Done.

Blog 13: Lesson 2 Reflection

1. My activity because it clearly defined itself as part if my senior project and represented I put a lot of creativity and thought into it.

2. Aside from time, I honestly think an AE. I had an in-depth description on my first answer divided into three parts supported by facts and studies. My sponge and actual activity also incorporated what I wanted to stress about my answer.

3. My answer with information that supported it and my activity.

4. I would've tried to calm down because it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I became too nervous and anxious and skipped slides or completely forgot to mention information.

5. How doctors work to improve by meeting with their peers.

Blog 17: Fourth Interview Questions

What is the information you look for first on a patient's profile?

Why are these (or this) information the most significant?

How helpful is the profile in a patient consultation and why is it (or isn't) helpful?

What happens if their patient profile is incomplete or unable to be accessed?

How else do you prepare for a patient consultation?

During a consultation, what do you do if the patient is unresponsive?

What is more important, being able to understand the patient needs or wants and why?

Are there pharmacy exclusive meeting, and, if so, what is their significance?

What do you normally talk about at these meetings?

(If patients were not mentioned) Why are the patients not included?

(If any acknowledgement of self-improvement to staff is not mentioned) How does the pharmacy staff work on improving themselves?

How does the pharmacy staff work on improving as a cooperative team?

How often are these meetings, and do you think they should be more or less frequent?

What do you consider a successful patient-doctor consultation? (Specific details)

What do you consider an unsuccessful consultation? (Specific details)

Under the VA, are there are any objectives you have to complete, and, if so, what are they?

Are there people who come who are not veterans, and need different methods of communication due to age and/or gender?

What is the significance/purpose of meeting with a patient?

Does performing patient consultations make you a better doctor, and in what way?

Do you believe there are more important duties than consultations? If yes, why?

If no, why not?

Blog 16: Advisory Meeting #2

A clinical pharmacist can achieve quality patient consultations when they have the knowledge to provide adequate advice.

1. Patients can only receive proper care when their pharmacists know what they're ailment is. If a pharmacist doesn't know what to prescribe a patient, they could aggravate a condition more. ASHP Guidelines on Preventing Medication Errors.

2. Pharmacists need to be careful when prescribing medication. If a pharmacist gives an overdose of medication to the patient, it could severely hurt them or kill them. Current Status of Pharmacist Influences on Prescribing Medicine.

3. Pharmacists need to understand the roles they play and achieve the goals, objectives, and standards given to them. If a pharmacist never interacts with a patient, they are not doing all of their goals and fail to meet specific guidelines. 2015 ASHP Health-System Pharmacy Initiative.

A clinical pharmacist can represent their knowledge by being able to identify their patient's problem accurately, are careful prescribing medication and doses, and meet certain regulation and standards at all times.

Blog 14: Independent Component pictures

Blog 14: Independent Component

A) I, Christian Demesa, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

B) Sources are my mentor ,Jonathan, head of the pharmacy department in the VA clinic, Debora, and pharmacists, Dr. Heller and Dr. Glen.

C) Completed.

D) I mostly did menial labor by organizing and putting drugs on their appropriate shelves. At times I was able to get observations of the pharmacists in the clinic, on the first floor, interacting with patients waiting to receive their medication. The rest of my Independent Component was spent asking Jonathan some questions about how the pharmacy is run, sitting in with Dr. Keller and observing how patients were given consultations, and within the medical delivery room organizing even more medications, creams, and ointments.

This component helped me understand my topic and my EQ: "How can a clinical pharmacist best provide quality patient consultations?" because I was able too see two different kinds of pharmacist-patient interactions. There was the front desk, which is what you would typically see in retail pharmacy, and patients who made appointments or were "walk-ins" which is clinical pharmacy. Jonathan and Debora were also able to give me a lot of information on how the clinic was run, and Dr. Keller gave me some insight on how she herself deals with patients.

January Update

Started my new Mentorship at the Los Angeles downtown Va clinic! So exciting! Mostly doing menial organization, but I was able, on three of my visits, observe patients! It wasn't exciting as I thought it would be because all the patients who go there are U.S. veterans. But still, all the patients have different personalities are dealt wit differently because of it. Hopefully, I can do more about reading body language as one of my answers.

Blog 12: Third Interview Questions

1. How does a clinical pharmacist communicate to patients or their families?
2. How does providing patient consultation help the patient?
3. How does providing patient consultation help the pharmacist?
4. What is a pharmacist's main concern or goal when providing a consultation?
5. Does performing consultations help you perform better as a pharmacist?
6. What types of communication are there besides a consultation?
7. When you give a consultation, do you have a method for it?
8. What factors determine whether or not a patient will adhere to their consultation?
9. What is the most challenging part of talking to patients?
10. How does providing this service improve the profession or hospital?

Blog 11: Mentorship 10 Hours

1. Nee mentorship at VA (Veteran's Affairs) Ambulatory Care Center.
2. New contact is Jonathan at 
3. By 1/10 it is 2.5.
4. Shadowed a pharmacy technician named Jason as he produced undoes medicine.

Blog 10: Senior Project, The Holiday

1. Over break my mentor was not around, and I began to talk about looking for another place to mentor, so
    I was contacting Pomona Valley and Citrus Valley.

2. I learned that even though my mentor is an abundant source of research, it is of no use to me if I am
    unable to see him due to how far away he is and his short hours. But I will keep in contact with Dr.        
    Campbell for research.

3. I would be forced to talk to Dr. Campbell or one of his co-workers who excels in patient consultations.
    But I would prefer to first go to another hospital and see how my potential "mentor" can help.

December Update

Happy New Year! I just turned 18 so yay I get to sign up for the draft!!! Anywho I enjoyed a nice relaxing winter while my mentor left for vacation. Speaking of my mentorship, he and I finally realized that our schedules are too different and the hospital is too far for my parents to take me, so I am looking at Pomona Valley Hospital for potential mentorship. Wish me luck!