Hi Everyone!

I’m writing to you as I travel back from Nashville, TN! This past weekend, myself and around twenty other Ohio State students attended the American Pharmacists Association (APhA)’s Annual Meeting. We had so much fun! The weekend was a perfect blend of networking, professional development, and fun. It was my first time visiting Nashville and I loved it.

For context, APhA is a national organization dedicated to supporting the profession of pharmacy. We have a student chapter of this organization here at OSU’s College of Pharmacy. Under national leadership, our student chapter focuses on advocating for the profession of pharmacy in our home state of Ohio and on providing pharmacy care services to our community. An example of our advocacy work would be the letter writing campaigns that we host as a way to connect with our state legislative representatives on issues like provider status for pharmacists. An example of a patient care project would be our project “OTC Medication Safety.” For this, we’ll host kids from local schools and do activities with them that cover topics like how to safely take medication with the help of a trusted adult.

Every year, APhA hosts a national conference for pharmacists and pharmacy students. Here’s a link to their website if you’d like to take a look at the schedule and read more about the sessions we attended! I really enjoyed getting to meet other student pharmacists from schools across the nation at these sessions. http://aphameeting.pharmacist.com

Here’s a picture of our chapter President accepting an award we won! Go Bucks!

Outside of the conference itself, we had the opportunity to explore the city. One restaurant of note was this place called “The Pharmacy” – how fitting! This “burger parlor and beer garden” served up some delicious German-inspired burgers and milkshakes in a fun twist on the classic, old-timey soda fountain pharmacies. If you’re ever in East Nashville, I highly recommend stopping by!

If you have questions about the conference or if you want to hear more about the awesome places we visited in Nashville, feel free to send me an email at Williams.4020@osu.edu! Now it’s time to unpack and get ready for the rest of the semester!

-Victoria

Hi all!

For this post, I thought it would be fun to give you an inside look into what life as a pharmacy student is like. Obviously, it varies for everyone, and it even varies weekly for me, but I wanted to give you at least some insight! Since next week is Spring Break for us, this is actually what my week looked like 2 weeks ago!

Some things to know: I work every other weekend at Nationwide Children’s Hospital (so one of the major differences for my classmates is that some work during the week and hardly at all on weekends), and I am a P2 (different years will have varying class schedules).

The biggest thing I hope you take away—work-life balance is not only attainable but is very important!

Sunday: I had a fairly lazy morning consisting of a short run, long breakfast, light studying and church until I went to work from 2-10:30 pm at Children’s!

Monday:

Workout 7-7:40

Class: The focus this module is on infectious diseases!

8:30-9:30: we had a lecture on Community Acquired Pneumonia from a specialist at the Wexner Medical Center

10-11:20: We had a lecture on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of antibiotics

11:30-12:30: This is our professional hour! You can get lunch or engage in a student organization meeting—for me, I had a meeting.

12:30-1:30: Small Group Session where we applied what we had learned in our PK and PD sessions

1:30-2:30: We had a free hour to study/grab a snack/etc while the rest of our class did their own small group session

2:30-3:30: We had a lecture on Urinary Tract Infections

Home: My family got a new puppy on Sunday so I got to head home to Westerville to meet her and have dinner with my family! After, I went back to my Grandview apartment to do a little studying and watch the Bachelor with my roommates!

Tuesday: I have lab on Tuesdays, which means half a day of class!

Lab: 8:30-10:45 (usually it goes until 11:20 but I got out early)! We worked on a patient disease management encounter and SOAP note (Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan–it’s progress note detailing a patient encounter) for it as well as a review activity from one of our previous lab courses.

Home: I got home and went for a run outside (yay for sunshine and warm weather!) ate lunch and relaxed for a bit.

1-5:30pm: I worked updating my notes and started to study for our upcoming exam and workshops!

After studying I watched Netflix, ate dinner and then went to bible study to end the night!

Wednesday: This was definitely one of my busiest days! We have class and I take an elective!

5:40-6:40 am: Workout! A good workout is one of the best ways to start a long day!

6:45-8am: I got ready for class, ate breakfast and relaxed before heading to class!

Class:

8:30-10am: Our instructor had prepared a lecture to watch ahead of time so class was spent reviewing the high points and doing several patient cases on community acquire pneumonia and hospital acquired pneumonia.

10-11:20am: We had a small group session on Acute Otitis Media (ear infections) and Urinary Tract Infections where we went over patient cases and specific questions we may encounter both in practice and in the exam.

11:30-12:30pm: Professional hour again! I had an e-board meeting for Pharmacy Council today during this time.

12:30-3:45pm: We had the afternoon off due to small group sessions so I met up with a few of my good friends from class, chatted and did a little studying.

3:45pm-5pm: This is the timeslot for my leadership elective (it’s wonderful and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested).

6-7:45pm: I normally would have headed home but one of the organizations I am a part of, Student Society of Health Systems Pharmacists, had an event with dinner and networking with residents and pharmacists to gain insights into credentialing and privileging as well as the residency process.

Home: I finally headed home for the night where I polished off a pint of ice cream, did a little studying and watched a TV show with my roommates before heading to bed!

Thursday:

7-8am: I got up and got ready for class, had breakfast and did a little last-minute studying before my quiz in workshop.

Class: Today is my workshop today—this is essentially small group session for 3 hours in the morning for me!

8:30-9: This part of workshop is dedicated to iRAT/tRAT (individual and team quizzes) over content covered in class.

9-11:20: We worked on patient cases in our assigned teams and went through the answers we chose as a class—this was over the same material our iRAT/tRAT was on (Pneumonia—community, hospital and ventilator acquired).

11:30-12:30: Professional hour again! I had a student organization meeting today where we got lunch and had a panel of pharmacy technicians come in and talk about what makes a good pharmacist from their point of view, as well as the new technician licensure laws.

Home:

1-2pm: I got in my daily workout!

2-7:30pm: I did some studying—primarily organizing my notes for our upcoming exam on Monday, made a Target run and had dinner.

7:30-10pm: Time to relax! I watched TV and had a glass of wine with my roommate before calling it a night.

Friday:

Class:

8:30-10: We had a review session for our exam on Monday with several of our professors and practice questions

10-11:30: I went to the RPAC (one of OSU’s fantastic fitness facilities) for a long and relaxing workout

11:30-12:30: Professional Hour! But I don’t actually have a meeting today, so I got to get lunch with friends!

12:30-2:30: This is our lab lecture timeslot. This week we had a quiz and did an activity to prepare for our lab practical next week.

Home:

3-5:15: I baked banana bread, and got ready to go out with friends for the night

5:30-to the end of the night: One of my student organizations, SSHP, had an inter-professional social at Pint House with free appetizers, and after we headed to the IPC social itself (IPC hosts social events throughout the year for all the inter-professional schools)!

Saturday: Today was a pretty relaxed day. I woke up later, worked out, had a big breakfast and watched Netflix most of the morning and early afternoon. Later in the afternoon I started to study for our exam on Monday with my roommates, and a couple of classmates came over to join us! Overall it was a productive but relaxing day.

I hope this gives you a better look into what life is like as a P2! If you have any questions feel free to reach out!

Cassie

Overall health and wellness is of great importance especially in the life of a professional student. As Pharmacy students, we are faced with the day to day stressors and difficulties that come with pursuing a career as a health professional. In addition to daily class attendance and participation, we have many outside of class assignment, rotations, internships. OH MY! It can get overwhelming quickly and you have to make sure to find healthy and safe outlets to relieve some of the stress. Otherwise, things could go downhill very quickly!

So what are some healthy and safe ways to relieve the stress? Why I’m so glad you asked! Well my new found favorite thing to do is going to the gym! I know I know, I’m late to the game but guys trust me going to the gym is AWESOME! The Ohio State University boasts of many amazing fitness centers. My favorite and perhaps the largest being the Recreation and physical activity center (RPAC). This gym is more than just a gym. It is a place of reflection; Where the stress and sorrows of pharmacology and therapeutics combined with Pharmaco-kinetics just fade away in a pile of sweat.

All jokes aside, living a non-sedentary life is very important. As students, most of our time is spent sitting down in lecture halls. The benefits of being physically active outweigh just the simple stress relief, it promotes strong cardiovascular health as well as overall well-being.

Granted everyday may not be a successful gym day, and on those days, I find other outlets to de-stress such as listening to some music or even catching up on some of my Netflix shows. No matter what kind of day it is, just take it in stride. One day at a time. Find what works for you and do your best and just watch the rest will take care of itself! Remember that you are a powerful and fierce being and you have to take great care of yourself before you can take care of anyone else.