A Day In My Pharmacist Life

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There is this one time, my friend asked me what I'm going to do that night. It was such a weird question because it was the regular weekday and I'm like "Nothing?".
I just got into work today after a week worth of holiday doing practically nothing at my parent's home. I played games, cooks, cleans, eat and watch anime. So my Monday blues was heavy but somehow I feel like I need to write so here is a story of how today went which is almost the same for every day.
I stayed at a rented house that I shared with another friend of mine. It was about 20 minutes drive to get to work. I usually wake up at 630 am. I always wanted to wake up earlier but I only really wakes up when the clock hits 630 am. I did my Subh prayer, make a cup of coffee, and prepare to work. I usually get some bread for breakfast the day before but I didn't have anything today so I make a stop at Shell and get myself some Gardenia waffles and milk. Sometimes I'll get my bread from the bakery. Most of my colleagues usually buy something along the way as well and eat it at work. But since we don't really have an allocated time for breakfast, it was a bit tricky so I prefer something easy like bread or kuih instead.





I work at outpatient pharmacy department which means our service is at the counter from 8am to 5pm to cater patients that come that day. We have island dispensing systems which mean there is separate counter and we will cater a patient's prescription step by step or in this case, counter by counter. The first counter will screen it and transcribe it into the system (if they have one). The next counter will fill the medication needed and give it to the next counter who will label everything. Then it will be countersign before we pass it to the next counter to be dispense. 
I was stationed at labeling today which is so rare. I usually did the first screening or dispense. There were plenty of patients so I was practically glued to the chair. While doing that, I will also make sure that everything was chronologically ordered and to make sure that no patient gets stuck somewhere. It was quite an uneventful day since usually any problem will be settled by the first screener. 
My colleagues asked me to put on Spotify while we work and she told me about some of Yuna's song that she liked. It seems like Yuna's self titled album debuted 2012 suits me better. I recently changed to Celcom which has better coverage. Previously, they had to listen to my offline playlist which have rather randomized songs lol.
We ordered food delivery for lunch almost every day. There are two persons currently who are regularly available and they will deliver it right to our doorstep. Today's menu is ayam masak lemak with sayur campur. Sometimes if we got too fed-up, we will go out but that is a rare occasion since we always indulge our laziness lol.
We have clinic days about three to four times per week. Today's clinic is surgical which usually didn't have many patients. Apart from clinic days, we will also cater Jabatan Pesakit Luar (which operates on weekdays from 8am to 5pm) and also the emergency department. So today's patient is mostly from Jabatan Pesakit Luar. Since this is a district hospital and we have few klinik kesihatan, we usually cater about 200 to 250 patients per day.





Apart from working at the counter, each of us has our own portfolio. For me, I am in charge of Value Added Services. What it means is that we provide some services that will ease patient's medicine collection process. Other portfolio includes stock control (with different classes of medications handled by different persons), managing drug's supply for patient that wanted to take their medicine in other KKM facilities, counseling, adherence clinic, manufacturing, and many more that is just too complicated for me to explain.
These portfolios all have measurable data which is how we keep track of everything  and thus detecting any issues and coming out with a solution. Since it is early month, we need to key in these data so whenever I got some free time, I will calculate everything and keyed it in. I also wanted to do some changes in how I want to keep track of one of my service so I went around the pharmacy and explain to everyone because I wanted to make sure everyone really, really, understand it. 
It was a rather uneventful day. We would sometimes faces some weird issues but everything went smoothly today except for this one patient that tells two different stories to us and the doctor. It was annoying. Sometimes patient will think a medication is superior than the others and they will have these preferences while omitting other medications which is what happens with this patient. If such things happen, we will have to explain to the patient that their understanding is wrong. Sometimes they admit they are wrong but sometimes they will just continue doing it.
Our main Value Added Services is Collect and Go. It basically means we packed partial supply beforehand so we can dispense it quicker when the patient come to take their monthly supply. I was going to that in the evening but only managed to do it not even halfway as when need to attend a presentation did by our fellow colleague at 3pm. It seems like this week willl have daily presentation by our warfarin team. The presentation lasted for an hour. Mind you that the counter is still open so we had to juggle between serving the counter and hearing the presentation. But we usually have fewer patients in the evening as most clinic appointments is scheduled in the morning.
I finished work at 5pm and make a stop to buy dinner. I cooked sometimes but I mostly have takeaways or went out with my friends. The traffic was surprisingly heavy and I guess I was tired that missed a turn so I only reached home by 6pm. 
I played a lot of Calls of Duty mobile nowadays and since I feel so tired, I will usually scroll Instagram or TikTok and then go to sleep. Sometimes I will catch-up on my Netflix or watch anime but I usually will be too tired to focus. 

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