What an interesting morning at Farmers today!! I worked with Maria (the locum!) and Ailbhe, the intern student, and myself! It was quite possibly the busiest morning/day ever at Farmers! We had constant volume of people coming in and out - at one point I could not even see the door to the front of the pharmacy there was so many people!! We were an efficient and effective team though - so we kept up all day:) There was just on patient who was unhappy with having to wait because her lunch was nearly over and she needed it within the second of dropping it off - sound familiar?
Of course they accommodated her request and gave her what she did really need immediately and asked her to return later for the not so pressing medications. Other than her, there is a lovely shopping centre two feet from the pharmacy - so most people are more than happy to walk on over to do some shopping:)
A woman around 50 years old asked about the Flu shot - well they said absolutely not unless you are >65 or have asthma would you even think about getting a flu shot. The flu shot - according to Maria & Ailbhe - has a potential to make you sick and suppress your already healthy immune system. You want your immune system to be active, not passive with the flu shot -- what an interesting concept, especially coming from home where every single person qualifies for the flu shot!! What a difference!
Once again, all the regulars came in for their methadone preparations - but today was slightly more then other days -- 6 patients came in for their dose!! We were so so busy!
A woman came in on Methotrexate and Plaquenil with severe pain and wanted to ensure taking Nurofen (ibuprofen) would be appropriate. I asked Maria to do a counseling session - where she performed a brief intervention and recommended she only take paracetamol (acetaminophen) for her pain but no more than 4,000 mg in a 24 hour period. They are currently re-evaluating the max dose due to the different sizes of patients and some people are too small/big for the respected max doses.
Sometimes, it is necessary to do a phone order for medications to be sent to us - so Maria asked me to call Murrays and place an order! It is very similar to the old system I used at Wegmans of ordering, except it is NOT automated - I talk to a real person the whole time!! They always stress that it is non-returnable which is slightly intimidating but important to be careful. They have at least 15 suppliers so it is also important to know who to order what from!
144 euro for meds for the month from DPS - so if a household/family has numerous medications - the household total will never be more than €144 per the month! The government picks up the rest! so interesting...I'll explain more about this when I learn more
Here is an interesting counseling point she made:
Antidepressants take 2 -3 weeks to work from their guidelines - so they tell people it takes 2-3 weeks for the max effect of the antidepressants vs. our recommendations of 4-6 weeks for max effect based on their clinical trials!
-take antianxiety in the meantime because high axiety at first - so it is recommended that they are on a rapid acting benzo while waiting for the effect because many people are high stress/anxiety at first with starting this type of medication!
Cayla and I decided to eat out tonight at Nando's - a place we found when we went to London and absolutely loved - so we went to the town centre and ate some chicken sandwiches with CHIPS and perri perri sauce:) AMAZING
Once we got back to Elaine's we booked a Paddywagon Tour for this Saturday! Paddywagon is a tour company and we will be doing a day tour from Dublin going north to the Giant's Causeway and Belfast! This was a highly recommended tour that we do so we were very excited to book it for Sat. since there is supposed to be very lovely weather!
Later in the evening we took the tram into meet Aillbhe in the town center for a "Pink Party" the Royal College of Surgeons was having. I went to an ATM before going in and found out later that the ATM charged me $10 to use!! Boy that really is a rip off! We were supposed to wear pink, good thing I brought one pink sweater to wear! It is to support and be donated to a breast cancer awareness fund. It was so nice:) We met a bunch more girls from the college of Surgeons med school - one girl lives right next to Lake George in America!! It was so fun talking with her!!! I couldn't be happier that Ailbhe is on rotation with me-she seriously includes me in everything and it is truly making this a marvelous experience:) Thank you Ailbhe!!!
We left before the last tram so we did not have to pay €20 for a taxi!!
Cheers for today!! Leopardstown again tomorrow:)
Craic: Irish words for fun - So, 'I'm having loads of craic!' haha!
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