Mucus
Through a course I am currently taking, I have been assigned to visit the Science Center a few times throughout the semester and educate children on mucus production, how medication is dissolved in the stomach, and what the difference between candy and medicine is with coloring activities. I am so glad to have this experience since kids are one of my favorite populations to work with!
This is mucus. Well, technically it is cornstarch mixed with water and green and orange food coloring. It’s a fun teaching tool and a great way to get kids involved with the lesson. After we make this gooey,sticky, slimy formulation, I tell the kids that this is what the body produces when they are sick and that it is green because of the germs. The reactions on their faces are amusing as they question, “So it’s boogers?! EWWWWWWW!!” Haha 🙂
At a different table, we have mortar and pestles set up for the kids to crush up Smarties candy. After they crushed up the Smarties and it becomes candy powder, I have them pack the powder into clear gelatin capsules like we were told how to in Pharmaceutics Lab. Nearby is a jar of water that serves as the “stomach” in this demonstration. I have the kids pretend to swallow the capsule and drop then capsule into the “stomach” and watch it dissolve. The purpose of this activity is to show kids how medicine works in the body once swallowed. It’s wonderful to watch them have fun with this and wow, they all have excellent compounding skills as well!
At the last table, we have coloring sheets, word games, and puzzles related to poison control for the kids to learn from. It’s nice to help them find certain poison objects on these sheets and help them figure out the answers to the word puzzles. There were actually a couple of crossword puzzles my classmates and I couldn’t figure out haha!
I honestly am a kid at heart and that is why I think I enjoyed this so much. I even colored and made some mucus for myself hehehe ! I am excited to continue this throughout the semester!
Filed under: Fourth Year | Leave a Comment
Walk to End Alzheimer’s Disease
Hi Everyone!
Last weekend I participated with the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists (ASCP) in the Walk to End Alzheimer’s Disease. A handful of STLCOP students and I met up in the lobby in the residence hall at 7:30 A.M. and took the metro link downtown to the Scott Trade Center. The opening ceremony was held inside the Scott trade center and each participant was given a Promise Garden flower. A blue flower represents someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia, a purple flower is for someone who has lost a loved one to the disease, a yellow represents someone who is currently supporting or caring for someone with Alzheimer’s, and an orange flower represents everyone who supports the cause and vision of a world without Alzheimer’s Disease. We walked for about two miles down the city streets of St. Louis and later a parade was held. It was a wonderful event and it was amazing to see so many people come out to support this cause.
STLCOP group photo
Opening ceremony in the Scott Trade Center
My Promise Garden Flower
The Walk to End Alzheimer’s Disease
Filed under: Fourth Year | Leave a Comment
Halfway Celebration
Who is halfway done with pharmacy school?!
I am halfway done with pharmacy school!
As STLCOP fourth years, it is mandatory that we celebrate the completion of three years of pharmacy school. I am so proud to have come so far and to see my peers next to me. This year, Halfway was held at a super classy place called Windows on Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis. It was a blast and I would do it all again- not the three years of pharmacy school but the celebrating hehe!
Me and some super awesome people
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Immunology Training
Hi everybody,
Hope your summers were great and that you all are well rested and ready to start the new semester! I am so excited about being a fourth year this year! I am half way done with pharmacy school!
This year for Professional Orientation, we are required to become certified for administering vaccines. This was a self-study process in which we registered for APhA (American Pharmacist Association) accounts, read through immunization information, and took an online self-examination before orientation. I learned about the different vaccines commonly given at community pharmacies and about the recommended dosages and times they should be given. It was an absolutely LONG process but I am so glad I did it. It gave me a new found excitement for the pharmacy profession.
At Professional Orientation yesterday, we ACTUALLY GOT TO PRACTICE GIVING VACCINES! We paired up with a partner and took turns practicing giving and receiving injections. Although there are several types of injections, we mainly focused on intramuscular injections (vaccines given through the muscle) and subcutaneous injections (vaccines given through the fatty tissue.)
For an intramuscular vaccine, the goal is to deliver the vaccine to the Deltoid muscle (located on the shoulder) at a 90 degree angle.
For a subcutaneous vaccine, the goal is to deliver the vaccine to the to the subcutaneous (fatty) tissue located on the back of the arm at a 45 degree angle. The trick to this is to somewhat pinch the skin on the back of the patient’s arm and then inject the vaccine.
These were the supplies that we worked with. Don’t worry, we did not use actual vaccines – only saline!
I am expecting that we will be given many opportunities to give vaccines at different STLCOP events this year. It’s going to be great! By the way,
Stlcopkelsi
Filed under: Fourth Year | Leave a Comment
Fourth Year Goodies
And here is my brand new backpack and lap top from STLCOP:
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: fourth year
Renaissance Faire
So while I am still here in St. Louis with no school work, I was looking for something new to do: Renaissance Faire!
Last weekend, my friends and I planned to adventure out to west to Wentzville and attend the Missouri Renaissance Faire and it was so awesome! I remember when I was very little, my aunt took me to one. It’s a shame I don’t remember much of it but I knew I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it this time too:D
We saw knights, kings, gypsies, magicians, craftsmen, dwarves, elves, fire throwers, blacksmiths, and even Jack Sparrow. There was also a jousting championship, belly dancing competition, and really delicious and decent priced food. I recently started watching Game of Thrones and was really excited when I got to sit in the Throne of Swords. If you ever get the chance to go to one, do it!
Photo Credits to Shylee Prasad
Filed under: Fourth Year | Leave a Comment
Community Pharmacy Rotation
Hello, readers!
Hope your summer is going well so far. For the past week, I have been working at and observing what happens in a community pharmacy a.k.a. Walgreen’s! It has been quite interesting so far. For this rotation, I have to complete 10 assignments designed to guide me towards learning what community pharmacy is all about including a patient interview in which I will be counseling a patient on over the counter medications. I honestly am a little nervous about this but I am totally up for it!
Other than learning from my class assignments, I have learned about the work flow of this community pharmacy. Usually there are two pharmacy technicians and one pharmacist at this pharmacy. The first technician will type up labels and the pharmacist will double check to see that it was typed correctly. After the pharmacist sees that it was typed correctly, the label is printed for the second technician to fill. The second technician fills the prescription and the pharmacist then checks to see that the prescription was filled correctly before putting it aside for the patient to pick up. The first technician is found in the front of the store and also deals with customers at the window or drive through window. The second technician is found in the back of the pharmacy and also deals with phone calls. I have been helping with filling scripts, answering calls and the drive through, and counting medications for inventory. It’s so exciting:)
Filed under: Fourth Year | Leave a Comment
Goodbye Third Year
I am halfway done with pharmacy school
So once again, here I am at the end of another school year. Wow, I cannot believe this and I don’t think it has hit me yet. Finals were a pain as usual but I am very relieved that they are over. This year, I entered the professional phase of pharmacy school, received my white coat, and learned more about the pharmacy world than I ever thought I would. I attended Missouri Legislative Day at the capitol, I got the chance to follow a sixth year and visit actual clinical sites, and I even compounded my very own drugs! I have learned a lot this year and look forward to learning more and doing better in the future. Have a great summer everyone and have fun! In my next post, I will be talking about my summer rotation site at a community pharmacy!
Filed under: Third Year | Leave a Comment
Pharmaceutics Lab Prescriptions
I just had my last Tuesday 7:30 A.M Pharmaceutics lab last week!
Every week in pharmaceutics lecture, we learned about different properties of different dosage forms and then during lab, we are given two prescriptions and are expected to do the appropriate calculations and write up procedures on how we would create this medication. During lab, we are given about two hours to mix, triturate (crush in the mortar),measure ingredients, weigh powders, and type up our labels. Compounding is a lot of hard work but just gaze at my creations. Aren’t they beautiful?!
Solutions
Solutions were the first drug forms that we learned about. For these, we had to look up the solubilities of all the powders and dissolve them in the best solvent. The blue one on the far right has added color dye and cotton candy flavoring.
Suspensions
Next, we learned about suspensions. Basically the difference between a solution and a suspension is the viscosity. A suspension is much thicker than a solution because the particles in suspension do not dissolve. If you let it settle, you will see that there is separation and that the particles will fall to the bottom while the liquid stays on top. These were fun to make and I especially liked adding grape syrup to the one on the far left. It smelled really good!
Ointments
After learning how to make solutions and suspensions, we moved on to ointments. Ointments were a little bit more tricky for me. These take a little more time to make and can get quite messy. We use a technique called levigating (I mentioned this is my post about IPP lab during my first year) where we use a spatula to spread and mash up particles on a glass ointment slab. This may sound simple but it takes a lot of patience to make sure that there are no longer any particles seen to ensure thorough distribution. Also, when packaging the ointment, we had to hit the container on the counter a couple million times to get all the product into the container. Finally, we had to make sure that the inside of the container is clean and smooth.
Emulsions, Gels, and Suppositories
The following are an emulsion, a gel and a box of suppositories. An emulsion is a mixture of oil and water particles. It is very important to make sure that you shake this before using it since water and oil don’t like each other. To avoid total separation, we used something called an emulsifying agent to hold the water and oil particles together.
The gel was a lot of fun to make. After we mixed most of the ingredients together, it formed a liquid. The last ingredient we added was called Triethanolamine. After a few drops of this and one good shake, the result was amazing- VOLIA, just like that, it turned into a gel instantly. It was magic!
Suppositories were very fun to make as well. We took a metal suppository mold and filled it with a liquid-waxy substance called fatty blend and added our active drug ingredient, Ibuprofen. After refrigeration for about 20 minutes, we formed a suppository and placed them in a cute little box.
Gelatin Capsules
There are a variety of different size gel capsules and you have to know which one to use according to the weight of the powders needed in each pill. To fill each capsule, we used a method called the punch method. So to do this, we dumped our powders on to a plain sheet of paper and sweeped it into a tall pile. We then took the body of the capsule and pretty much cap it over the powder pile and continuously stabbed it until it was filled. Snap it and weigh it and then you are done!
Filed under: Third Year | Leave a Comment
In the Shoes: Chemotherapy
I have to say that one of my favorite classes that I have taken in college is Professional Communications. I am not the best speaker so I am very glad that STLCOP offers this class and I didn’t think I would learn as much as I am learning from this class as I am. I feel like not only am I learning how to behave and respond professionally to situations that I may encounter in the future as a pharmacist, but I am also gaining more self confidence. I am learning to become a better listener and how to become more clear in communicating what I mean not only for my career as a pharmacist but for everyday purposes with people in my life today too. It’s a class that is very different from the all the other pharmacy classes and allows us to be creative- that is why I like it!
On Monday, I had a group presentation called “In the Shoes”. The purpose of this project was to try to get others to put themselves in the shoes of a patient with a certain condition. Since our topic was chemotherapy, my teammates and I created a story line about a girl going through chemotherapy and told this story through a diary to really get people “in the shoes”. She goes through a roller coaster of ups and downs as her cancer worsens and becomes better. At times she feels scared, lonely and miserable. At others she feels frustrated, hopeless, and lost. Finally, at one point she accepts her condition and looks forward to the smaller things in life and stops taking things for granted.
As you may tell from previous posts, I really enjoy putting videos together and here is another. Hope it gives you the feels!
Filed under: Third Year | Leave a Comment
stlcopkelsi 
