Waterloo Pharmacy alum reflects on patient care rotations at St Joseph’s Health Care London Southwest Centre for Forensic Mental Health Care
Kim (Mary) Dang (Rx2023) spent part of her patient care rotations at St Joseph’s Health Care London’s Southwest Centre for Forensic Mental Health Care. Typically, Waterloo Pharmacy students are placed in a region of Ontario to complete their patient care rotations based on a lottery. However, the forensic placement is the only rotation that is volunteer based.
“I had a keen interest in mental health patients and wanted to learn how to best serve unique patient populations,” says Mary.
Mary spent part of her rotations alongside Brandon LeBlanc, pharmacist and preceptor at Southwest Centre for Forensic Mental Health Care, and the entire healthcare team including occupational therapists, recreational therapists and nursing staff. Her day to day consisted of reviewing patient medications and bloodwork to manage side effects, counselling patients on new medications and explaining their treatment plan to ensure patients understand their medications and have autonomy over their plan.
“Patients in this environment are here for a longer term,” says Mary. “The entire team has more time to treat them, follow up and ensure their treatment plan is in place. This experience showed me the great benefits of a holistic health approach.”
Moving to a new city, living in a new place and starting a new pharmacy field was overwhelming for her at first, but patient care rotations gave her a newfound independence as a pharmacist and helped her establish a support network. Mary and a few other students who were placed in London for their rotations rented a house together. “We connected with one another to offset living costs and to create a small community during our six months on rotations. It was helpful to share our experiences while we were all going through the same thing,” adds Mary.
While she was passionate about psychiatry, Mary didn’t have any extensive experience, but rotations gave her the space to grow independently as a pharmacist.
“The biggest lesson I learned was how to advocate for marginalized patients who may have had previous challenges with our healthcare system. I learned how to be open and understanding, to approach each condition with no barriers,” says Mary. “Everyone deserves great access to care, and we can achieve that goal as a team, healthcare professionals and patients together.”
It is one thing to be passionate about a field but experiencing it firsthand can either solidify or change a student’s career path. For Mary, rotations cemented her path forward. “The whole rotation was a success. I loved my time at Southwest Centre for Forensic Mental Health Care. Brandon and the team helped me become more confident as a clinician and I now know I can take on this clinical area of practice in the future,” adds Mary.
Mary’s favourite part of her rotations was working with the patient population she’s most passionate about. She speaks highly of the whole experience, the environment, the team at the centre and the easy drive to St. Thomas from London.
One of the standout qualities I’ve observed in students from Waterloo is their patient-friendly demeanor and strong emphasis on patient-centered care. This ability to see beyond a patient's illness is crucial for delivering high-quality pharmacy services and fostering meaningful connections with patients.
“Over the past few years, I have thoroughly enjoyed precepting some remarkable students from the Waterloo School of Pharmacy,” says Brandon LeBlanc, “One standout has been Mary Dang, who demonstrated a keen interest in mental health pharmacy. Mary brought an unparalleled energy that made our days not only productive but also exciting. Like many of my past students, she kept me on my toes with her thoughtful and relevant questions about our patients. Her commitment to optimizing patient outcomes was evident in everything she did.”
LeBlanc is eager to welcome new students and looks forward to the opportunity to mentor someone from Waterloo Pharmacy again.
“One of the standout qualities I’ve observed in students from Waterloo is their patient-friendly demeanor and strong emphasis on patient-centered care. The School excels at selecting individuals with exceptional emotional intelligence, which is especially valuable in the mental health field. This ability to see beyond a patient's illness is crucial for delivering high-quality pharmacy services and fostering meaningful connections with patients,” adds LeBlanc.
Mary highly recommends this rotation if you’re interested and able to choose it. “You will learn a lot in a safe environment. You will inevitably make mistakes, but learning from those mistakes will shape you as a future clinician. I wish everyone would give psychiatry a chance, not only does it give you a different clinical area to work in, but you might just find that you love it,” she adds.
Her advice to current students is to take the opportunity to try new things because after graduation the opportunities, the space and the time to step out of your comfort zone may not be as readily available as they are during School years.