yo!

i wrote a blog a few days ago- but it got deleted- so let me try again-

"Scott!! why haven't you posted a picture of your drug-information-center computer work area?!"

ok ok... sorry!


thats about it... i've been trying to speed up the computers there- i actually got the other 3 students to download the gmail stuff so we can communicate with each other when we need to- its funny because we'll joke around and start typing and chuckling to ourselves... what do i do there?
BASICALLY- MDs, pharmacists, nurses, PhDs call in and ask questions that in some way have to do with drugs and we try to answer them- but its not a "ok here's your answer" kinda thing- its a deal where we dig into the primary literature (things like the LANCET, New England Journal of Medicine, CHEST, British Medical Journal, and 1000s more that you may have heard of) via pubmed- the government's official place where all that stuff is organized and selectively available... check it out sometime- its kinda like google but much more complicated - and you have to have a registration through your school to gain access to some of the articles- it can be pretty pricey if you're not with an academic institution-- wikipedia probably explains it better than i can...

but anyways- i take questions- usually over the phone- research them- summarize the primary literature in the form of an email- attach the PDF documents- and send the answer back to the researcher/clinician...

a couple of the harder ones i've had were:
"what is the evidence of using ceftriaxone and lidocaine 1% in combination for an IM injection in patients <1 year old?"

and

"we'd like to use Flolan in a 3 kg pediatric patient but the package insert only discusses discussion methods and dosing information down to a concentration of 3,000 ng/ml and not lower- as our patient is premature, we'd like to try to use lower doses, but can't find any information to support the stability/pH of lower concentrations- what should we do?"

those both took me about a day to research and document and respond... there's a lot of documentation... if you look somewhere you have to document what search terms you used and if they were official search terms or only key words- stuff like that--

i was really flattered the other day because my preceptor told me that i should consider expanding one of my answers (for the first question above) for submission to the "Annals of Pharmacotherapy"- (a prestigious and often-cited medical journal that would be absolutely insane if i could actually get published in... ) i dont know if i have the desire to tackle that or not- and she told be it would be totally extra and not part of my grade- but just that she thought i could do it... and i took that as a huge compliment...

but when i really think about it- this rotation was basically MADE for me... its looking stuff up on the internet (mostly- but we have a lot of books we reference too...it just so happens that most of them are available online too- and searching a PDF is much easier than going to an index and flipping pages...)... and i mean, i look up stuff on the internet... WELL... (i just do...)-
also installing firefox has given me a huge huge advantage in terms of being able to multi-task smoothly between different projects at a pretty good rate--

but yeah... i think i already have the A wrapped up for this one too... which would make 5 As, 1 B+ and 1 B- since my january rotation start... and that's really helping the old GPA--

this year- and this semester of school so far has been one of the best semesters of college i've ever had- i guess most of that has to do with the fact that i'm being evaluated on my work ethic and people skills instead of my ability to take tests... i kinda like that! alll my p2/p3 friends have been SO stressed out these last few weeks for their first big therapeutics test- and i remember exaclty how they felt! i was so cranky and grumpy and tired and stressed and you name it- but i'm not any more- i'm loving where i'm at- memphis has really seemed like an OK place the last few months-- i dont know what changed-- i'd have to say it was probably me because the city is the same-- but its like i kinda feel like i'm a part of the city now- like the stuff that scared me or kept me on edge before doesnt really get to me as much--

and yeah- there's a girl- and its going really well- more (vague) details as they come- hehe