Printer

When I first arrived in Australia, two days before school started, I had a list of things to do immediately. Other than finding a place to live, one of the tasks on the list was to buy a printer. With all the powerpoint slides I was anticipating at University obviously a solid printer is essential. However, I still haven’t bought a printer because, we pharmacy students are lucky enough to have access to free printing and photocopying - yay. However, pharmacy students from other schools aren’t so lucky. So, Danielle and I went shopping for a printer this afternoon so that she can print off hundreds upon hundreds of powerpoint slides. It was a bit of a chore since Perth doesn’t have huge electronics stores like Futureshop or bestbuy. One of the first places we went to didn’t have what we were looking for but they sent us down the road to a competitor. The place we were sent to was just like office depot back home - exciting! They had lots of stock and decent prices so now we have a printer.

It’s very annoying going shopping for electronics in Perth just because they are unbelievably overpriced here. For example… a Playstation 3 will cost you $400 at futureshop in Canada but in Perth the exact Playstation 3 will set you back $999. The same goes for any other electronic and its just depressing. Somehow we actually got a really good deal on the printer.

The Placement is Done

Its been awhile! I’ve been so busy with school this past week. The seven week pharmacy placement is over and I had a huge report to submit at the end of this past week. So, that was due yesterday. I had been working on it throughout the seven weeks and I was impressed with my lack of procrastination. Plus, on the eve of the due data I enlisted Danielle to assist me with some Excel work – that was helpful. Anyway, I had the project bound at the university print shop yesterday and it turned out great.

The seven weeks were really helpful. School is so detached from actually practicing pharmacy so it was nice to get out in the field. I will probably end up working at that pharmacy at some point in the near future.

On my last day at the pharmacy I was down in the compounding lab milling some lassar’s paste when this ancient pharmacy assistant came into the lab. He started showing me some of the different flavorings they had for the compounds – I think just to hear himself speak. Anyway, on the shelf he came across some perfume that one of the pharmacist’s had “made”. Well, he got me to sample this nasty perfume on my hand because smelling it out of the bottle wasn’t good enough for him. This “perfume” smelled awful and I could not get the odor off my hand for hours even after constant washing. Nasty!

Compounding

The pharmacy where I’m currently doing my placement is a compounding pharmacy complete with a fully stocked compounding lab. Now I’ve made compounds in my phamaceutics labs before but those get marked then thrown in the trash. Today however I made my first compound that will actually be used by a patient. Exciting! The formulation was simple:

6% Sulfur
2% Salicylic acid
in aqueous cream.

The last time I worked with sulfur was in my pharmaceutics exam and my product was grainy. I made sure that didn’t happen this time around. They gave me free reign of the compounding lab and unlimited time so I really took care to make a nice product – it was definitely pharmaceutically elegant.

Great lecture.

I just got back from school. Today we had an afternoon lecture from an American professor, and pharmacist, who is an expert on pharmacology and breastfeeding. His name is Tom Hale and he literally wrote the gold standard textbook on medication and mother’s milk. I have no idea how my university got him out here to lecture us but I’m glad he came. His lecture instilled in me a great deal of confidence in the area of drugs and breast milk. He must have presented that lectures thousands of times because it was really well done. It was also nice to listen to a lecturer who does not have an Australian accent for a change.

Good day at the pharmacy.

Last week I had a very busy day at the pharmacy. Early in the morning the pharmacist, John, decided it was time to “throw me into the deep end”. So, he really stepped it up a notch. It was interesting and I really learned a lot in a short period of time because I was forced to quickly research the medications before handing them out to customers. At the same time I was learning the point of sale system for the first time.

At about mid day a drug rep came by and the pharmacist told the rep to give me her presentation. The product she was selling was an over the counter line of nasal sprays that we already stock so it was nice to get some detailed information on the products. I also got some free samples!

Vaccinations!

I have been informed that I will be required to show vaccination records for the following diseases in order to partake in the 7 week hospital rotation next year:

Hep B
Measles
Mumps
Rubella
Varicella
TB
Diphtheria
Tetanus
Pertussis
Polio

Since I don’t have any records for my childhood vaccinations it looks like I’ll be re-vaccinated. I’m not looking forward to it as I’m not a fan of needles! A few years ago I cut my hand on a tin can at Whitespot and I had to get a tetanus shot. I think I nearly passed out after the injection just from my intense fear of needles. On the upside it will be nice to have immunity to those diseases.

This term has been exhausting so far

I think I’m working too hard. 9-5 at the pharmacy then homework at night. Plus on top of that I’ve been working at the bike shop on the weekends. This weekend I worked Saturday and Sunday for the full day. I need to cut back my hours!

Other than that not much going on. We need to get the car into a shop to have an oil change done. With my schedule this have proven to be impossible since I need the car to drive to work everyday! I hate those drive in Mr Lube places but in this case I would really like to visit one just this once. Sadly, I have not seen a single drive in lube shop anywhere in this city. Hopefully the motor doesn’t seize up in the meantime!