As a student pharmacist at Ohio State University, you are required to complete a certain number of community health service hours. Each year in professional school, this number increases by 10 hours. As a first year pharmacy student you will be required to complete 10 hours throughout the year. There are multiple sites throughout Columbus that welcome Ohio State students so the opportunities to volunteer are endless!
Throughout my past three years at Ohio State, one of my favorite places to volunteer as a pharmacy student is Helping Hands. Helping Hands is a free clinic in Columbus that provides medical care and social services to un-insured or under-insured adults who meet certain federal poverty guidelines. The clinic is open on Thursday and Friday nights throughout the year.
At this clinic, pharmacy students have many opportunities to impact a patient’s health. Pharmacy students are able to do medication reconciliations with patients to get an updated list of their medications, allergies, and how they are taking their medicines. Pharmacy students also help in the dispensing process of prescriptions and then counsel the patients as needed under the supervision of a pharmacist. At this site, you are able to see the patient all the way through the entire process from signing in, seeing the doctor, and then giving the patient their prescription. Working alongside a pharmacist you are guaranteed to learn many different things throughout this process! In my first year I learned counseling points on common medications and also how to counsel patients properly. I am so grateful that Columbus has such an amazing site for pharmacy students to learn and volunteer at! So when you’re looking for your first volunteering site make sure you check out Helping Hands 🙂
As always please feel free to email me with any questions at Johnson.4816@osu.edu.
Go Bucks!
