Roger Ayoub, Barrie/Huntsville

Roger Ayoub, Rx2019 - Barrie

Navigating the region

Barrie is a combination of cottage landscape and busy city life, which made it great to explore the natural areas (especially the water!) in the summer

months and enjoy the many events that occur during my stay such as Kempenfest and Boots and Hearts music festival. Whether you like hiking and exploring nature or embrace the rapidly growing city with its many events and being 1 hour away from Toronto, there will always be something for you to do!

My favourite thing to do around Barrie was exploring nature. If you love being around water, like me, there is plenty to see. Barrie being the last major city before cottage county does mean that there is a lot of traffic on the weekends, but it also means that gorgeous places can be just steps away! I lived on the south end, 15-minute walk away from the water, and I felt like I went to the lake almost every day after work. With both Muskoka and Toronto being an hour away, both nature and city are never far away from Barrie.

As Barrie is a quickly growing commuter city, real estate is in demand. However, there are many places to choose from! In the north end, the area beside Georgian College is full of rental properties to accommodate students, which is a good place to start. It is also a good idea to contact upper years that spent their rotations at Barrie to ask where they stayed. I was able to find an excellent place to stay with a landlord who was a recent Waterloo pharmacy grad, all I did was ask an upper year where he stayed in Barrie on rotations and it set me up for many memorable pharmacy (and non-pharmacy) conversations with my landlord during my 6 months there! P.S Feel free to contact me if you have questions about housing in Barrie.

Noella, our RCC was frequently in contact with us, making sure all is well and offering support when needed. We did also attend an interprofessional event with Georgian College dental hygiene students and worked together on patient cases, this day was facilitated by Noella and was a good opportunity to see how interprofessional collaboration can also happen beyond medicine and nursing. We also met with Noella during the first week of each rotation, shared our experiences, discussed the structure of the rotation and provided feedback.

Practice site descriptions 

Shoppers on Bayfield, one of the busiest shoppers in Barrie. My role was basically everything a pharmacist’s duty entails. I was checking prescriptions, counselling patients, dispensing methadone, and administering vaccines. Emphasis was mostly on OTC recommendations, answering patient’s questions and doing clinical and product checks on prescriptions. Shoppers on Bayfield is run by a very competent team of experienced techs, assistants and pharmacists, which made it an excellent learning experience, as everyone was very helpful when challenges came up. However, due to the large volume of prescriptions, it provided an opportunity to be independent and put my skills to the test. This was challenging at times but ended up providing me much needed confidence in independent problem solving and load management.

Medisystem Long Term Care Consulting. My role was to conduct medication reviews (LTC MedsChecks), assessing their current medication regimens for any drug related problems (DTPs) and coming up with recommendations to solve those DTPs. Emphasis was mostly on reading charts, interprofessional communication with nurses, nurse practitioners and physicians, and creating recommendations that are feasible in the setting of LTC. As most of the patients I assessed had various forms of cognitive impairment, most days did not include patient interviews. However, I worked with a multitude of nurses from different facilities and learned how helpful their input can be when conducting your assessment and forming your recommendations, especially when an interview with the patient would not be fruitful or is not feasible. One of the challenges of this rotation was how different it is from community pharmacy, where the emphasis is on OTC recommendations, practical counselling tips and drug dispensing, as these areas are almost non-existent in LTC. The emphasis is instead on evidence, clinical studies, guidelines and interprofessional communication, which was challenging to tackle but I walked away much more confident about my clinical knowledge.  I also must note that for this position, I had to drive to a different nursing home every day, and usually drove 2-3 hours total every day, so a reliable car is essential!

Little Avenue Independent Pharmacy. My role was very fluid during this rotation, as I mostly was responsible for their blister pack patients and every day operations of the pharmacy along with many projects along the way. The owners of the pharmacy were incredibly caring for their patients and were always trying to do more for them. Because of that, they tasked me with out-of-the-box assignments, such as providing ostomy supplies and education to our patients that need them, setting up telemedicine for some cases, conducting medical cannabis initial assessments (before they see a prescriber), and creating a new documentation system for blister packs to minimize the chance of errors.

Every rotation had its challenges, and with each challenge presents an opportunity for you to become a better pharmacist. Shoppers’ busy days taught me efficiency and setting priorities. Medisystem LTC helped me fine-tune my interprofessional communication and clinical decision making. Little Avenue independent pharmacy inspired me to push boundaries for my patients and always think of what more I can do for them. All in all, my patient care rotations experience made me feel ready to progress towards practising as a pharmacist for the first time.

Advice for future students

Talk to upper year students that did their rotations in your region, that’s what I found most helpful. They will provide you with realistic expectations, testimonials on certain rotations, and maybe even help you find a place to stay! It’s also a great starting point to network with people in the region. I have met many friends through my landlord who I have met through an upper year, and they were great company while I was there, and we still meet up now.

Embrace your region, make friends, ask questions, and enjoy the ride!