Before the day is over... allow me to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!!!
Forgot I didn't make a blog entry about her birthday.... feel very bu siao now...
Going back early in the morning tomorrow (today?) to celebrate my mum's birthday. Really feel very bad for not calling home frequntly, maybe it's just guys... Anyway, God bless!
Friday, May 23, 2008
More about preceptorship
After almost 2 weeks of preceptorship at Watsons, I've come to the following conclusions:
1. Retail pharmacy is not my cup of tea.
2. Singaporeans ARE really busy...
3. People QUESTIONS.
4. Doing business is UGLY...
5. Ethics don't work unless there's people willing to follow it.
6. Unreasonable people will always be unreasonable.
7. Singapore's standard of service is still far from perfect.
8. Sales reps are not always eloquent and know a lot about their products.
Why do I come to such conclusions? Firstly, I really enjoy slacking, but not to the extent of doing nothing while I'm supposed to be working. Sitting around doing nothing during some of the time I'm in the store just irritates me. I think I'd prefer the hospital style where I'm getting summoned around the clock. (But I still want my meal breaks)
Next, people who walk in to retail pharmacies really don't wait until you finish your counselling before they start to walk off. Most of the time you finished your counselling just nice when they're already at the counter.
About the questioning, I think some people don't really trust the pharmacist per se. You tell them it's for dry cough then they'll stand there for 5 mins trying to read through the box to prove to you that you got it wrong...
About the ugly side of business, one thing I don't really like. Some company actually asked the preceptee to call other companies to check on prices... Come one, wanna check price send someone over to copy isn't it faster? Exploting students like that is plain wrong. Unless, of course, the student did that voluntarily.
About ethics... Nothing much to say, self explainatory.
Some people are really super unreasonable. They can come into your store and demand that you have something right there right now even when you don't have the stock or cannot give it to him. When they can't get what they want they'll just scream at you... More information can be found on CP's blog.
There this patient which came in with a prescription a few days ago and my preceptor told him we don't keep the POM that he's given by the doctor. He told us that it's the 5th pharmacy that he went to on that day to try to get the medicine. I wonder why the other pharmacies can't just try to help him find out whether their branches keep the drug of concern. My preceptor helped him though, but the nearest branch that has it is Taka, so... as usual the customer is going to be super pissed off, although he didn't scream at us, but his tone suggests that he's super dissapointed with the pharmacies in Singapore. Oh, did I forget to say that he's a foreigner? There goes our reputation. So in the future nobody respects pharmacists you know who to blame.
So far 2 drug reps came to my store to promote their products. First one is some lady who just popped in and started preaching to us how great her products are before even like introduce who she is... I bet she's new... The second one came in today, a guy. He come in and try to explain to us how great his products are, I'm alright with his lack of continuous phrases, but apparently he didn't know a lot about his product. When my preceptor asked him one question, he does what most NS guys do. Taiji. So in the end the question is not addressed. This totally ruined my impression on drug reps. I always see them as someone eloquent and know a lot about their products so that they can push the products. Alas, the reality is always different from our imagination.
One more thing, after 1 week of MIAing, finally my preceptor is able to come for work. Super long never see him liao, almost forget how he looks like. At least he's recovering, thank God for that.
1. Retail pharmacy is not my cup of tea.
2. Singaporeans ARE really busy...
3. People QUESTIONS.
4. Doing business is UGLY...
5. Ethics don't work unless there's people willing to follow it.
6. Unreasonable people will always be unreasonable.
7. Singapore's standard of service is still far from perfect.
8. Sales reps are not always eloquent and know a lot about their products.
Why do I come to such conclusions? Firstly, I really enjoy slacking, but not to the extent of doing nothing while I'm supposed to be working. Sitting around doing nothing during some of the time I'm in the store just irritates me. I think I'd prefer the hospital style where I'm getting summoned around the clock. (But I still want my meal breaks)
Next, people who walk in to retail pharmacies really don't wait until you finish your counselling before they start to walk off. Most of the time you finished your counselling just nice when they're already at the counter.
About the questioning, I think some people don't really trust the pharmacist per se. You tell them it's for dry cough then they'll stand there for 5 mins trying to read through the box to prove to you that you got it wrong...
About the ugly side of business, one thing I don't really like. Some company actually asked the preceptee to call other companies to check on prices... Come one, wanna check price send someone over to copy isn't it faster? Exploting students like that is plain wrong. Unless, of course, the student did that voluntarily.
About ethics... Nothing much to say, self explainatory.
Some people are really super unreasonable. They can come into your store and demand that you have something right there right now even when you don't have the stock or cannot give it to him. When they can't get what they want they'll just scream at you... More information can be found on CP's blog.
There this patient which came in with a prescription a few days ago and my preceptor told him we don't keep the POM that he's given by the doctor. He told us that it's the 5th pharmacy that he went to on that day to try to get the medicine. I wonder why the other pharmacies can't just try to help him find out whether their branches keep the drug of concern. My preceptor helped him though, but the nearest branch that has it is Taka, so... as usual the customer is going to be super pissed off, although he didn't scream at us, but his tone suggests that he's super dissapointed with the pharmacies in Singapore. Oh, did I forget to say that he's a foreigner? There goes our reputation. So in the future nobody respects pharmacists you know who to blame.
So far 2 drug reps came to my store to promote their products. First one is some lady who just popped in and started preaching to us how great her products are before even like introduce who she is... I bet she's new... The second one came in today, a guy. He come in and try to explain to us how great his products are, I'm alright with his lack of continuous phrases, but apparently he didn't know a lot about his product. When my preceptor asked him one question, he does what most NS guys do. Taiji. So in the end the question is not addressed. This totally ruined my impression on drug reps. I always see them as someone eloquent and know a lot about their products so that they can push the products. Alas, the reality is always different from our imagination.
One more thing, after 1 week of MIAing, finally my preceptor is able to come for work. Super long never see him liao, almost forget how he looks like. At least he's recovering, thank God for that.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
First 3 days of preceptorship
After 3 days of preceptorship, finally I have time to blog about it.
On the first day, we had some sort like a briefing from the coordinator at SMU Watson's training room. The refreshment is nice :P Deli France sandwiches and something that looks like muffin. And they shifted me to Raffles City instead of the original Marina Square. Guess what? The change in schedule is because my preceptor's getting married and she's going for her honeymoon =_=! The first day was alright, but my preceptor is still in Malaysia attending some seminar. So, the pharmacist on duty, who are a year 6, took me and Andrew in. She's like soooo senior-like, didn't give me the impression that we're students and she's a "preceptor". Nothing very interesting happen on the first day... except you consider meeting the Operations Director face to face on the first day counts...totally didn't expected it, at least she has the i'm-a-super-high-ranking-person aura. That aside, Andrew and I got shocked when we found out that Kai Tong (the year 6 I'm talking about) got 1st class honors... Nearly fainted when I discovered it. I always have the impression that those super zai one likes to go hospital rather than retail.
For the second day, finally I met my preceptor, Toh Yen. He's a super nice guy, although I admit that I was a bit intimidated by him at first coz he looked like super stern when I first met him. Anyway, he taught us a lot regarding export sales, prescriptions, receiving of goods, some basic counseling points for cold and allergy, eye drops blah blah blah and a lot more. Basically the second day didn't do much also, bumming around reading the product inserts and shadowing him (literally) when he counsels. I dispense my first Zyrtec on the 2nd day! Yay! But seriously, dunno why, it's super tiring on the second day. I'm like fell asleep at 9.30pm.. Totally missed my QT, faints. Oh ya, it's Toh Yen's birthday on the second day, so the preceptorship coordinator came down to the store and treated all of us lunch :P YumYum.
Today, which is the third day, is a lot better. We started on checking the prices of all the OTC and P item manually as well as electronically to make sure all the prices are accurate. Raffles City is really full of people having cold. Our cold medicines are literally flying off the shelves. I saw one lady take panadol like free... Shocked when she just walked to the counter and sweep the whole lot of panadol into her basket... Some Caucasian guy walked in today for antibiotic, and our preceptor asked us to find out what's his indication for 1g per day for two days. In the end, we found out that it's for STD.... And that guy doesn't look like he got STD at all... except his face being super red, maybe from too much exposure to Singapore's sun. Managed to secretly do some OTC counseling when my preceptor went in to the office haha. Hopefully I'm qualified enough to counsel and make recommendations for patients soon. Had free lunch again today courtesy of Toh Yen :P YumYumYum KFC and Pizza Hut.
Tomorrow's my off day! At least I can have time to really sit down and try to read up on cold and allergy before Friday so that I can answer the question asked by the preceptor. I really thank God for arrangement of my preceptorship. Good preceptor + Friendly staff + Polite customers = Happy Chern Yih!
On the first day, we had some sort like a briefing from the coordinator at SMU Watson's training room. The refreshment is nice :P Deli France sandwiches and something that looks like muffin. And they shifted me to Raffles City instead of the original Marina Square. Guess what? The change in schedule is because my preceptor's getting married and she's going for her honeymoon =_=! The first day was alright, but my preceptor is still in Malaysia attending some seminar. So, the pharmacist on duty, who are a year 6, took me and Andrew in. She's like soooo senior-like, didn't give me the impression that we're students and she's a "preceptor". Nothing very interesting happen on the first day... except you consider meeting the Operations Director face to face on the first day counts...totally didn't expected it, at least she has the i'm-a-super-high-ranking-person aura. That aside, Andrew and I got shocked when we found out that Kai Tong (the year 6 I'm talking about) got 1st class honors... Nearly fainted when I discovered it. I always have the impression that those super zai one likes to go hospital rather than retail.
For the second day, finally I met my preceptor, Toh Yen. He's a super nice guy, although I admit that I was a bit intimidated by him at first coz he looked like super stern when I first met him. Anyway, he taught us a lot regarding export sales, prescriptions, receiving of goods, some basic counseling points for cold and allergy, eye drops blah blah blah and a lot more. Basically the second day didn't do much also, bumming around reading the product inserts and shadowing him (literally) when he counsels. I dispense my first Zyrtec on the 2nd day! Yay! But seriously, dunno why, it's super tiring on the second day. I'm like fell asleep at 9.30pm.. Totally missed my QT, faints. Oh ya, it's Toh Yen's birthday on the second day, so the preceptorship coordinator came down to the store and treated all of us lunch :P YumYum.
Today, which is the third day, is a lot better. We started on checking the prices of all the OTC and P item manually as well as electronically to make sure all the prices are accurate. Raffles City is really full of people having cold. Our cold medicines are literally flying off the shelves. I saw one lady take panadol like free... Shocked when she just walked to the counter and sweep the whole lot of panadol into her basket... Some Caucasian guy walked in today for antibiotic, and our preceptor asked us to find out what's his indication for 1g per day for two days. In the end, we found out that it's for STD.... And that guy doesn't look like he got STD at all... except his face being super red, maybe from too much exposure to Singapore's sun. Managed to secretly do some OTC counseling when my preceptor went in to the office haha. Hopefully I'm qualified enough to counsel and make recommendations for patients soon. Had free lunch again today courtesy of Toh Yen :P YumYumYum KFC and Pizza Hut.
Tomorrow's my off day! At least I can have time to really sit down and try to read up on cold and allergy before Friday so that I can answer the question asked by the preceptor. I really thank God for arrangement of my preceptorship. Good preceptor + Friendly staff + Polite customers = Happy Chern Yih!
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Finally, the long awaited freedom
After weeks of mugging and struggling with lecture notes, finally it's time to take a short break before engaging on more activities. Pharm Analysis is alright, just hope that what I answered is correct lol.
Preceptorship's starting next monday, somehow I have the feeling that I should pay my preceptor a visit before the whole program starts. Now I realised that 150 for 6 weeks is really not enough to cover anything at all. Just the amount I spent to buy shirts for this preceptorship totals up to more than 100 bucks le. Bad... Anyone got any quick money lobang?
I also realise that I lack a lot of skills that I wish I had. Really got to get down and start learning something. No point just knowing how to mug but don't care about the world... What to learn? Thinking of taking up guitar, but I've totally no music sense... although I think I have prefect pitch (is that what they call it to be?) Or maybe I should start learning how to invest in shares and bonds... I foresee some future econs module...
Starting next semester will be the mug till I die mode... I shall shut myself off away from the world and mug... Must get CAP 5 at least for one sem!
P.S. Happy Birthday Lun! May you get into dean's list lol
Preceptorship's starting next monday, somehow I have the feeling that I should pay my preceptor a visit before the whole program starts. Now I realised that 150 for 6 weeks is really not enough to cover anything at all. Just the amount I spent to buy shirts for this preceptorship totals up to more than 100 bucks le. Bad... Anyone got any quick money lobang?
I also realise that I lack a lot of skills that I wish I had. Really got to get down and start learning something. No point just knowing how to mug but don't care about the world... What to learn? Thinking of taking up guitar, but I've totally no music sense... although I think I have prefect pitch (is that what they call it to be?) Or maybe I should start learning how to invest in shares and bonds... I foresee some future econs module...
Starting next semester will be the mug till I die mode... I shall shut myself off away from the world and mug... Must get CAP 5 at least for one sem!
P.S. Happy Birthday Lun! May you get into dean's list lol
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
The End is Near!
Econs down, I think in the end still need to S/U it... Sien...
One more paper before the whole examination routine is completed. Eric Chan please be benevolent and gives questions that I know how to do...
Realised that I desperately need an organiser... time to think of getting a PDA phone... My schedules are in a mess... resulting in super a lot of overlapping appointments. That shows that my memory have failed me... Old liao...
I should be studying... 10 more chapters of Eric Chan's notes to go...*knocks head
One more paper before the whole examination routine is completed. Eric Chan please be benevolent and gives questions that I know how to do...
Realised that I desperately need an organiser... time to think of getting a PDA phone... My schedules are in a mess... resulting in super a lot of overlapping appointments. That shows that my memory have failed me... Old liao...
I should be studying... 10 more chapters of Eric Chan's notes to go...*knocks head
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Perseverance!
Perseverance is hmm... Void Stone + Ring of Health... Well, that's lame...
Really need more perseverance, I need the mana and hp regeneration badly. Emoed for quite some time after MicroB and I think someone thought I committed suicide... Don't worry, it didn't cross my mind, nor will it be in the near future. Just wanna to get away from all the worldly affairs for a moment. Sorry if I made the two of you worried...
Well then, I'm back on my feet again, or rather, I stopped Emoing. All the way for Pharm Anal and Econs!
P.S. Iron Man is nice, go watch it.
Really need more perseverance, I need the mana and hp regeneration badly. Emoed for quite some time after MicroB and I think someone thought I committed suicide... Don't worry, it didn't cross my mind, nor will it be in the near future. Just wanna to get away from all the worldly affairs for a moment. Sorry if I made the two of you worried...
Well then, I'm back on my feet again, or rather, I stopped Emoing. All the way for Pharm Anal and Econs!
P.S. Iron Man is nice, go watch it.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Disaster!
MicroB was a disaster to... I've not feel so hopeless during an exam paper before... Maybe my way of revision is totally wrong...
Anyway, I din emo for long... I remembered someone told me that retail therapy works, so does spending money! So... I went out and spent a lot of money...Alright, 170 bucks not a lot... But it's a lot for me...
Pharm Anal! Please don't be so difficult PLS!!!! *crosses fingers
Anyway, I din emo for long... I remembered someone told me that retail therapy works, so does spending money! So... I went out and spent a lot of money...Alright, 170 bucks not a lot... But it's a lot for me...
Pharm Anal! Please don't be so difficult PLS!!!! *crosses fingers
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Pharmaceutical Microbiology!
Less than a day to exams, but I'm feeling soooooooo hot that I can't concentrate on studying. So.... I was trying to complete my super long overdue strike freedom... I seem to like to fix my model kits during exam time.... Anyway, CP gave me this link which shows what your name means :P Initially I thought it's more for the Europeans rather than Asians. Somehow I'm interested on how they compute the results with just your name input. Super long analysis. And it's kinda accurate too. Try it out!
What Lee Chern Yih Means |
 You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is. You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are very open. You communicate well, and you connect with other people easily. You are a naturally creative person. Ideas just flow from your mind. A true chameleon, you are many things at different points in your life. You are very adaptable. You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out. Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia. Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person. You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You're always up to something. You have a ton of energy, and most people can't handle you. You're very intense. You definitely are a handful, and you're likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun. You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people. You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts. You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals. You are a free spirit, and you resent anyone who tries to fence you in. You are unpredictable, adventurous, and always a little surprising. You may miss out by not settling down, but you're too busy having fun to care. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start. |
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