Selena Pasion, Rx2018 - Vaughan, North York and Mississauga
Navigating the region
I completed my patient care rotations in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). I chose this region as my number one preference because I wanted to stay near to my home in Milton, Ontario so I could save money by living with family and commuting to my rotations. I did enjoy the variety of sites that the GTA had to offer, such as large chain stores such as Shoppers Drug Mart or WalMart, smaller independent pharmacies, and many hospital sites throughout the GTA.
I lived at home and drove to most of the rotations. Depending on the rotation, the commute could be from 15-60 minutes. When I was at Sunnybrook in Toronto, I was fortunate to have stayed with family close by and was able to take the TTC to get to Sunnybrook easily and timely.
My Regional Clinical Coordinator (RCC) was great, easily accessible through emails, and was highly engaged in the student learning experience. She was very supportive and visited me during one of the rotations. She ensured that students were supported and receiving a valuable learning experience from the rotation.
Practice
site descriptions
My first rotation was completed at a WalMart pharmacy in Vaughan. While this pharmacy filled less prescriptions than I was typically used to, they had a very high amount of OTC customer interactions. My first preceptor here really set a great example for what a preceptor should be – extremely supportive and engaged in my learning experience. All of the staff were very welcoming and supportive to my learning, they also challenged me with questions or topics to study when the store wasn’t so busy.
I enjoyed my second rotation the most as it was the most unique pharmacy experience I’ve encountered throughout my four years of pharmacy school. I was fortunate to be placed at Sunnybrook Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), and I was working alongside another student from the Rx2018 class. The NICU was a great learning experience because everything was entirely new. As a teaching hospital, not only were the preceptors and pharmacy team great to the students, but I found too that all the allied health was so welcoming to new learners. My preceptors took the initiative to set myself and the other Waterloo student up with mini-lectures with the allied health to enhance our knowledge of such a new department. For example, we learned directly from other professions in the NICU to get an overview of neonatal respiratory care, nutrition, the impact of antibiotics, sterile compounding and so much more. I even got to watch a C-Section. All this really truly helped me to understand how interprofessional collaboration contributes to patient care. My role in the NICU involved learning about different neonatal conditions, the medicines used to treat them and participate in morning rounds with the allied health team. In the beginning, there was quite a bit shadowing of the preceptors. By the end of the rotation, I had gained enough experience to be able to go on rounds on my own, represent the pharmacy department, and overview the pharmaceutical care of all the babies in the unit.
My last rotation took place at the Real Canadian Superstore pharmacy in Mississauga. This was a fairly busy community pharmacy and really taught me to work under pressure. I performed roles of the entire pharmacy team, from accepting prescriptions from customers, entering, filling, checking and counseling on medications. There was a lot of opportunity for professional services here.
Communicating with patients and interprofessional health, knowing where to look up drug information to be able to answer patient or physician questions, and working under pressure were some skills I gained during my rotations. My rotations helped me to improve on these skills as an independent pharmacist, so that I may perform them without the help of a preceptor in my future.
UpToDate, RxTx, Lexicomp and Natural Medicines were the resources I used the most for support.
Advice for future students
Think about what you want to gain from these rotations, what types of pharmacies you’d want to work at, and research what regions have the most to offer you.
The learning experience is a lot of what YOU make it. Even if you’re at a site that isn’t very busy, there’s always things to learn and things to keep you occupied.