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.