My Trick

I am back at the University of Michigan Hospital for my second summer. I mostly work in Mott, which is U of M's children's hospital. I love working in Mott, because there are many different roles for technicians. Probably my favorite part of the job is compounding oral medications--which we have to do quite a bit of in Mott since not many kids can swallow pills. I love breaking out the mortar and pestle for these--it makes me really feel like a pharmacist!

Last summer, it seemed like all of my attention went toward learning the details of the technician roles; this summer, I'm much more comfortable with what I'm doing. I am also excited that after another year of school I've learned about a lot of the medications we are dispensing. Despite my excitement at recognizing the medications, I worry at times, that I can't recall everything I have learned about them. I don't want the seemingly endless hours that I've spent studying these drugs go to waste!

With this worry, I came up with a trick: Now, every time I see a drug that I have learned about, I try to come up with as much information as I can about it. If I feel like I'm not remembering important things that I have already learned about the medication, I write the name of the drug down. Then, if the work slows down in the pharmacy, I look up the information. Hopefully this works. I'll have to report next time how effective this memory trick is (or is not), so stay tuned... Also, in my next entry, I hope to talk a bit about some shadowing and project work that is coming up.