The Rotation at Baye Hospital - Essay Example

Preceptor’s Reflection Site Rotation type: County Hospital and s: Baye Hospital Midpoint Reflection Paper Thismidpoint reflection presents a personal account of the rotation at Baye Hospital. Before my experience at the hospital, I had never worked in a hospital and the only experience that I had in working in an organization offering health care was a short stint of one month at CVS pharmacy. Having grown up in Ethiopia, I was eager to have a firsthand experience in provision of health care in a developed country. The midpoint reflection gives the goals and objectives of the rotation and this will be compared with the actual experience. The main goal for going for the rotation was to help me get firsthand experience and skills in offering pharmacist delivered care to diverse patients and operate under the specified laws. The specific objectives for the rotation were to learn about the health care environment and apply the knowledge learnt in class and to expose me to the standards of health care. The other objectives of the rotation were to enhance the ability to grow both professionally and personally via interactions with care givers and to advance the oral skills. The experience during the rotation was both informative and exciting. As explained earlier, having grown in Ethiopia had only given me an experience of hospitals where care givers including nurses, doctors and pharmacists communicate on paper which is both cumbersome and inefficient. However, on getting to Baye Hospital, I learnt that doctors, pharmacists, nurses and all other staff involved in offering health care communicate via computers and modern technology. In addition, there are machines in each floor called Pyrex where pharmacists load medications for every patient as doctors and nurses can access the medication from these Pyrex machines. The reliance on information technology system and Pyrex machines in the hospital makes coordination easier and the pharmacists can track where each of the medication is going. On starting the rotation, I learnt how the pharmacy system in the hospital works. I also learnt of various common medications such as the anesthesia and statin medications. I also learnt how to dispatch drugs where every morning I received a medications order put the order in the system then load the drugs on the Pyrex machine at each floor. Another fact that I learnt during the rotation is how to communicate with other health care professionals thereby enhancing other my professional and personal skills. The other activity that I engaged in during the rotation is packaging and dispensing tablets, capsules and liquid medications. The activities I engaged in helped me achieve all the objectives and goals I had expected to achieve as I prepared for the rotation. A particular behavior observed with the pharmacy employees is that they are always cheerful when working and keen to details. The pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are also friendly in guiding students during the rotation. This behavior helps to enhance service delivery as the patients are served by happy employees and it also enhances team work within the department. The knowledge learnt in class was handy during the rotation. Particular, the skills learnt about interviewing patients were applied throughout the rotation period. Student’s Name: Preceptor’s Name: Date of Reflection: Site Name: Rotation type: County Hospital and dates: Baye Hospital Final point Reflection Paper This is a final account of the experiences of the last part on last weeks of the rotation held at Baye Hospital. It adds up to the experiences presented in the mid-point reflection and the main goals for the second half of the rotation was to develop a deep understanding on the functioning of the pharmacy systems. The other goals of the period were to equip myself with better skills on interviewing of patients and to understand the name of different medications and how such medications function. I got interested in understanding these areas following the realization that use of information technology system and Pyrex machine in communication and drug distribution enhances efficiency and quality of service offered to patients. As the experiences during the first half of the rotation, the second half was both informative and interesting. The objectives of the second as explained above are based on the overall goal of the rotation of gaining experience and develop practical skills in health care management. These objectives were achieved through the numerous experiences that I had during the last half of the rotation. One of the best experiences was interaction and use of the pharmacy system in the hospital which help enhance my understanding of the functioning of such systems. From what I gathered from the pharmacy staff and following the use of the system, a good pharmacy system supports various activities carried out in the pharmacy (Augusto and Xie, 2009). The system is used in patients order entry and dispensing, it helps in inventory management and reporting. The system is also used in clinical monitoring where it helps the hospital administration monitor patient’s compliance to the dosage. The pharmacy system is interconnected with other departments to enhance communication and efficiency (Augusto and Xie, 2009). In the second half of the rotation, I also learnt effective patients interviewing techniques. Some of the skills acquired on patient interviewing include listening where a pharmacist should concentrate as the patient is explaining any particular issue. The other skill that a pharmacy employee requires is probing where s/he asks questions in a sincere way. I also learnt the value of silence during interviewing where the pharmacists should learn to pause and rephrase a question in case it appears unclear to the patient. Lastly, a pharmacist should have skills of establishing rapport and be analytical. Due to participation in drug dispensing, the rotation helped me to understand the names of various drugs and their role. During the rotation, I observed that pharmacy employees treat all patient information as confidential. The staff does not discuss nor disclose the kind of medication prescribed to the patients. This behavior is critical in health care provision given that it ensures that the patients are confident as the deal with the staff. In most cases, patients would like to have the information on the drugs prescribed to remain confidential to avoid stigmatization. During the rotation, the information learnt on the importance of patient medication history and the rules and regulation of control medications in USA hospital was applied. Additionally, information on the functioning of hospital systems was observed practically. The rotation was a departure from theory work learnt in class to application of such knowledge practically. The rotation helped equip me with valuable skills that are required of a pharmacist. The strength of the rotation is that one is given a chance to experience everything first hand and through participation. However, during the rotation time is short which means that one is not able to learn so much. Reference Augusto, V., & Xie, X. (2009). Redesigning pharmacy delivery processes of a health care complex. Health Care Management Science, 12(2), 166-78. doi: 10.1007/s10729-008-9086-3 Read More