The need for pharmacy electives in the medical school curriculum

I spent one year working full-time as a pharmacy technician at a high-volume community pharmacy prior to entering medical school. Besides learning the intricacies of billing and the dispensing process, I was granted personal access into a world nearly all patients, but few providers are aware of.  At the time my job was just that: a job. There were fun perks like counting pills in multiples of five and visualizing the different colors and sizes of capsules and tablets I had never come across before. But it wasn’t until medical school that I began to fully appreciate my pharmacy knowledge. Our school has a free student-run health clinic, and I was asked to manage its dispensary of over-the-counter and prescription medications. The dispensary was in disarray when I took it over: medications were arranged according to what they were generally used for, and students were having difficulty finding specific medications requested by their attendings. After a unanimous vote from the student board, I set to work re-arranging the shelves alphabetically so that when a student went to find atenolol it could easily be found at the top left corner of the shelves before atorvastatin. Locating and dispensing necessary medications at no cost to our special population of uninsured and underinsured patients became much easier. Everything was running smoothly until physicians who volunteer in the weekly resident-only clinic saw the shelves. There was a minor revolt, in the form of a collabora...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Meds Medical school Medications Source Type: blogs