So, in the first week, the schedule seemed pretty manageable. Monday and Thursday are full days but Tuesday and Friday are half days with Wednesday being a variable schedule. (We have our Interprofessional Ethics course, which meets five times, in the afternoon starting next month, and our Experiential Programs class, which largely meets off-campus and on our own schedule, in the mornings.) And with work Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday nights, I thought, this will be hard but not terrible. Well, there aren't any assignments in the first week.
In the second week, things started coming due and we had our first quiz. Still, the load was not terrible, and the Experiential class time was filled with our immunization training, which is very low-level stuff and review of the text we'd read over the summer. In the third week, we had no Skills class because of the Labor Day holiday. But in the fourth week, the tests started coming and Skills started having weekly assignments.
In the fifth week - last week - we were done with the immunization training and ready to start the actual Experiential experience. That was just an orientation lecture, which is no big deal, but from here on out we're expected to spend three hours in our assigned pharmacies each week. That's more to do. This week, we have two exams and a fairly major assignment due Friday. And another exam Monday. And the week after next, the Ethics class starts up. And my wife is due at the end of November. It feels like they're just adding layer after layer to my already over-full plate. I might explode.
Or, I might adjust, and be just fine. I'm consistently amazed at humanity's ability to learn to deal with the tasks placed in front of it. I was talking with a coworker at the casino who got a second job. We both agreed that the more time you commit to things like work and school - basically, the thinner you spread yourself - the more you're able to handle the increased work load. Someone who works 40 hours a week feels like they work a lot. But someone who works 60 hours a week often feels the same way, or even that they have more time available, because they learn to use that free time more efficiently. I don't spend five hours playing video games because I don't have five hours available in a chunk. And I don't think it's a special ability I have. People are always telling me that they don't know how I do it. Well, I don't either, but I do it, and not because I need less sleep than everybody else (that's far from the truth) or because my memory is so good that I never need to study (I definitely do, as witnessed by my first exam score). It's because humans are remarkably adaptable creatures.
So the biggest change in this year's curriculum is a switch in focus. In the first year it's all very fundamental stuff, much of it review or further explanation of required coursework we've seen before. In the second year, the Integrated Organ Systems (IOS) courses become therapeutics-focused. Therapeutics is the branch of pharmacy devoted to managing disease states with drug (and non-drug) therapy. It's not a regurgitation of facts or principles but an application of principles to a specific situation. You not only have to know what drug X does or the side effects of drug Y but which would be the best choice given a patient with condition Z and lab value N. And as you learn more and more organ systems, it gets more and more complicated. Right now all we know is neurotransmitters, the kidneys, and hypertension. By the end of the third year, we'll know the whole body, and the body is not as rigidly segmented as we like to think it is. All the systems interact. You don't have one condition in isolation in almost any patient. So how do you treat diabetes in a patient with impaired kidney function, high blood pressure, hypothyroidism, and crazy cholesterol levels? What if they also get a bacterial infection? I don't know that yet, but a pharmacist does.
Anyway, I feel like I'm learning at an incredible pace. Every week when I go to Kaiser I understand more about more drugs than I did the week before. It's really cool to be a part of that, and to recognize it, as it happens.
And what do you know, this was an incredibly on-topic entry. Did you like it? Don't be afraid to leave feedback, even scathing criticisms, and to ask for more of what you'd like to see.
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