Am I unlucky or unlucky?

Went back to work yesterday, almost fully healed. But guess what? I'm down with fever again. My last night's sleep is in the bursts of 6 minutes each since 2am until I woke up at 6 just now. Must be the effect of 240 mg pseudoephedrine HCl. Never had incidents of tachycardia and insomnia before.... sad....

If I would like to say what causes my fever, I think it's lack of sleep...

Fever continues

38.9 C..... Faster let me recover!

ZZZ...

Out of all times, why fever now???? Sianzz.......

Week updates!

17/5/2009 (Monday)

Started at Drug Information Service. I'm really not the kind of person to sit down and research about something.... Yawn like nobody's business.... FYI, the whole DIS is run by a single pharmacist... Super zai la! Can't imagine myself doing it lol.

18/5/2009 (Tuesday)

Had CPE in the morning, but was quite disappointed to see that only a few people adhere to the time.....Second day at DIS. Did an assignment on insulin glulisine (Apidra). Again, forgot to quote the sources... man how bad can I be at doing reports?

19/5/2009 (Wednesday)

A change of environment. Started lab. Spent the time before lunch reading SOPs and pack 100 bottles of resins. The afternoon is less eventful, as we went out to deliver drugs for R1 and R2. Ended up in CC as my preceptor wants to see me. Stayed at CC until like 7pm... Rushed down to Anchor Point to have dinner with Kai Lun and Andrew.

20/5/2009 (Thursday)

Had inpatient pharmacists case presentations today. Again, only a few kittens around when I enter the office at 8am... what to say? Followed the lab pharmacist for ward rounds today (she's part of the TPN team), which a gastroenterologist consultant joined us around 10am. Learnt a few things about TPN and how getting the right people to communicate with those people who refused to listen to you helps drive processes. Learnt how to gown up in order to enter the clean room (we did it outside though, I looked like a monkey in jumpsuit... wait till you see the pictures). Hopefully we'll be able to enter the clean room tomorrow. I prepared a spironolactone paediatric suspension today :) Compounding skills in use haha. The later afternoon was dreadful, as sodium benzoate is awefully difficult to weigh, as we need to keep the accuracy of +- 0.002g. Didn't managed to finish my portion before I went home. Gotta finish it tomorrow morning....

So far so good. But this week is a little less eventful. Coupled with the numerous meeting my preceptor needs to attend, my learning points are starting to flood my notebooks....

C8

Was at Cancer Center @ Level 8 today for the whole day. Look at how the staff perform aseptic manipulations using the isolator. So that you know, it's a negative pressure inside the isolator, so that in case the glass breaks/fumes leak etc. the cytotoxic fumes will not contaminate the operator :)

It's always tough learning about keying in data into a database for the first time, especially when the fields are interactive. Good that I'm not a total computer idiot, although I do have some reservations about keying in the wrong things into the wrong fields. Well, at least I din kill anyone with my entries.

The meeting this morning was super long...... Was having a bit of dypsnea along the way due to prolonged static posture... At least got free chicken essence to drink haha.

I think I'm quite fortunate to have Siew Woon as my preceptor. She's the kind that really sit down with you and discuss about things kind. She's very nice to talk with, as long as you don't anyhow. I felt much more motivated after talking to her before I knock off today. She's really the kind who can patiently teach and effectively motivate.

Time to get my basics in the science of pharmacy strong before jumping into the art of it. I think I've been wanting to fly too much, gotta train my wings first.

P.S. As fulfilling as it is, preceptorship really suck all the excess energy out of me. Super tiring! LOL

Second Day of Preceptorship!

It's the end of the second day of preceptorship, and I'm still in NUH's Cancer Centre. Was a bit sian diao in the morning coz we're basically trying to find the answers my preceptor gave us by looking through SOPs. Well, it's something that we need to know.

The afternoon is more interesting, where I got to follow one of the pharmacist when he does his dispensing. I'm amazed at how patient he is towards me (haha I'm famous for being irritating and throwing smoke bombs), teaching me the steps in dispensing very thoroughly and systematically. Now I understand why there's a long queue in the pharmacy. BUT... We need to put our patients first, so whatever that we didn't know or understand, ASK!!!!!! Don't assume! Assuming makes an ASS out of U and ME (direct quote from my preceptor when I tried to smoke bomb her).

Seriusly, I think the way we were taught to answer examination questions causes us to anyhow throw smoke bombs... which is very dangerous in healthcare settings. Time for me to learn how to not throw so many smoke bombs. 知之为知之,不知为不知,是知也! 

I really need someone to turn my perceptiion of patient care and make me get really serius with all these stuffs. Hopefully I don't learn my lessons from killing my patients.....

First day of Preceptorship

Finally it's the first day of preceptorship! Been looking forward to it since I've started to get bored over the holidays.

The first day is full of SOPs, admin stuffs, and expectations. Rather glad that my preceptor is a super capable oncologist pharmacist :) I was quite stressed initially when I got to know Siew Woon was my preceptor, but well, need to get used to it. If not I'll just faint and die in hospital lol. She's  a very kind preceptor (really!), just that maybe she has a high expectation on her students.

I'm supposed to finish all my appendix 1, 2 and 3 by the 3rd week haha. Good, at least I can hand it in even before the preceptorship finishes. 

We learnt the 6 steps to hand washing, how to wear PPE, a lot of SOPs for oncology pharmacy, as well as how to administer doxorubicin to a patient today :) Gotta research on what causes extravasation, how to prevent it, and its management (hint hint can find from BNF haha).

The next 6 weeks is going to be an enriching and educational one! I'm soooooo looking forward to it man!

Really want to thank God for His opening of doors and the wonderful preceptor. :)

P.S. Hopefully I get the time to write more after we're being slave driven to full speed haha

Preceptorship is back!

Today is a lucky day! After a few days of sianness, we finally received the news that we're getting back our batch 1 preceptorship in line with the step down from orange alert to yellow! Praise the Lord! Now I can stop searching for part time job to fill in the 6 weeks.

Met Choon Pei and shopped around Tampines area this afternoon. Guess what? Something funny happened!

We were at the traffic light separating the MRT station and Tampines Mall.
CY: Choon Pei (pointing at a person's feet), see.... Raymond's shoe.

CP: (Confused) Huh? 

CY: (Pointing at the person's shoes again) See , Raymond also got one of that shoe. Same one.

CP: (Trying to look at the pair of shoes) Oh... Eh? Raymond's head....

CY: (Confused) Huh? 

(The traffic light turns green, the person took off his shades, started walking)

CP and CY: OMG it's Raymond!

Raymond: ... (Apparently didn't know we're discussing about him)

We're like super blur la! Haha had quite a good laugh out of it. LOL!

Last Paper!

Finally I've completed the last paper for the semester. Imagine how cool it is to have a fever (38.2 only wo) with all the swine flu talk around the world and you need to sit for a pharmacokinetics paper :) 

The result is a whole lecture theater with just you, the examiner, and another person. I was forced to wear a surgical mask coz I'm having a fever of more than 38 degrees... Argh, such an untimely fever. I thank God for Kai Lun and his Panadol Extra! It tided me through the whole paper! Strangely enough, I seem to be able to answer the questions much more easily when I'm having fever rather than the other papers where I'm completely fine... Is it because the paper is easy? Who knows....

Anyway, I'm grateful that the exams have came to an end, at least for now. Can't wait for the new semester to begin now that my preceptorship has been cancelled due to the swine flu... Swine flu swine flu please don't spread to Taiwan! I still want to go and enjoy myself! 

Please hope that I become well soon... It sucks to be ill during exams, luckily it's the last day of exams.. But well, at least it means I will waste less money on other less productive thigns which I may do (such as spluging my savigns away somewhere).

I shall not talk about my prediction of grades this semester. Whatever will be will be la hor. Just let me do my FYP!