This rotation is at a Walgreens Pharmacy. I've always said that I'd never work for a Walgreens store after graduation, but I must admit that I may be changing my mind. Everything about the way the store runs is so efficient, and the programs that they have set up on the computer increase the ease of providing patient care (in my opinion, anyways). So, I'm back to thinking that I have zero clue which company I'd like to job search with...and I'm no longer ruling Walgreens out.
I've enjoyed the first two weeks of this rotation. After some initial training to get used to their computer filling software, I'm now fairly comfortable with the system. I've done a lot of filling and prescription entering, some counseling on medications and OTC items, and made several phone calls to other healthcare professionals to complete tasks during patient care. I've looked up drug interactions, and completed one of my two required patient care plans (an evaluation of the medications a patient is currently taking, dosages, adverse effects, monitoring, drug interactions, etc). The entire staff that I work with is fantastic, and the environment is very laid back and enjoyable. Only three weeks left! The time is flying by again.
As far as "fun stuff" goes, I've gotten to see a lot of the beautiful wilderness that Colorado has to offer. The first weekend that I was here, Jakob and I drove to Estes Park and explored the town a little bit - looked into some of the tourist shops, drove past the Stanley Hotel (made famous by Stephen King's "The Shining"), ate lunch at a local pizza joint. Then we drove a couple of miles outside of town and entered the Rocky Mountain National Forest. This place was fantastic! Not long after entering the park, we saw a bear cub walking along the top of a hill just up from the road...less than 100 yards from us! We didn't see a Mama Bear around, but she might have been keeping watch over her cub from the trees. Nonetheless, it was so neat to see a bear in the wild!
As we continued our drive, we saw several elk (both cows and bulls), picas, chipmunks, and a marmot. We did a little bit of hiking to see some views...boy, was that incredible! I will admit though, the high elevation was not cooperating with me. I got wore out so fast and had a bit of difficultly breathing at times because the air was so thin.
During my second weekend here in CO, Jakob and I took a camping trip up in the mountains. My preceptor (aka boss) gave me Friday off so that I'd have three days for the trip...what a nice guy :) So we left early Friday morning, stopped at Vern's for a delicious pecan cinnamon roll, drove up the Poudre Canyon, and took the side road leading toward Long Draw and Trap Lake. The drive took a couple of hours, but the views were amazing and the trip went by relatively quickly. After setting up camp, we decided to do some moose hunting (hunting includes shooting pictures with a camera, no guns). Throughout the course of the weekend, I saw 8 moose. Eight! Wow. Six cows and two calfs. No bulls though...bummer. Oh well.
The rest of our camping trip included a few short hikes to the lake and down by the creek close to our campsite. I can't get over how beautiful it is up by the moutains. Lucky, no bears attacked us. That would have been unfortunate. I will say, though, that camping in a tent when the temperatures get down to around 34 degrees F at night is not super fun. It's actually super cold and not fun. And since there was no running water, I was an incredibly dirty girl when we got home. Ha! Oh well...at least there was an outhouse, so I didn't need to stake out a special spot in the woods to use as a bathroom.
And that brings us up to date...finally. My internet access is limited here, as I can only go online where I can find internet. I'm currently staked out at a coffee shop/internet cafe located in Fort Collins' Old Town (their downtown area). It's a super neat place called 'Mugs' and they have fantastic chai tea. I'll try my very best to keep this updated from now on!
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