List of things that make hospital pharmacists irate (formerly The Apathetic Pharmacist)

Friday, October 12, 2007

Rotation X: Acute Care II.....the post that goes nowhere....

So rotation number ten was in Uniontown, PA....a medium sized town roughly 40 minutes from Pittsburgh....and 40 minutes from Mo'town. It was much more like Pittsburgh than WV culturally. The first day I'm there this pharmacist walks by us around lunch and goes, "Jeet jet? Some good pizza dahn'n the cafeteria, n'at." Haha. They speak Yinzer. The Pittsburgh accent is absolutely confounding to outsiders. It's barely English. I was with two other students and the one from around Beckley (Southern West Virginia) asked me what the hell that person just said. I told her he just wanted to tell us they make good pizza down in the cafeteria....she says back to me, "Nah, he said something about an airplane....I think." Good times.

The rotation was made easy because I was with a person whose love for clinical pharmacy matched my love for pharmacology/medicinal chemistry. Between the two of us, there literally was about 3 things all month the preceptor asked we couldn't come up with the answer to off the top of our heads. I'm pretty sure we left her with an incredible impression of WVU students. The words, "Wow, most students don't know that" came out of her many times during the month. I suppose that should be expected......she tells me she usually gets mostly Pitt students .

I also missed an entire week of the rotation because my lungs hate me. I feel bad for the poor dermatology (I think resident) guy that saw me in student health when I came in. He was so lost. I presented with a history of asthma , afebrile lung infection x 3 days, and marked SOB. His first idea was to give me Biaxin and send me off. Uh, no. The correct answer is give me a nebulizer treatment and some damned steroids. I spoke up and asked for steroids...he went and got the attending family medicine doc...she agreed with me. 20 minutes later I'm breathing a-ok and I got a script for sweet, sweet prednisone.

I don't know what it is, but the vapor from nebulizer treatments tastes really good. I know I'm probably crazy on that one. Actually, I think it's a remnant from my childhood. Remember when the fire department would come around to your elementary school and stick your class in that playhouse thing and pump in that fake smoke....then you had to get on your hands and knees and crawl out. The nebulizer tasted like that shit. Mmmmm.

Due to said steroids, I opted to get some greasy-ass food to defray potential "stomach ouchies". Yes, that's the technical term. I figured I'd get some fast food for the first time in ages. Like as in high school. I was disappointed in my $3 worth of food prepared in 35 seconds by a guy making $5.15/hour. WTF has happened to Wendy's? Their shit used to be delicious. Now the fries taste like cardboard and the best part of their hamburgers are the buns. Jesus. My phlegm was saltier and less soggy than their fries. I think that when Dave died, his company died with him. I miss that son of a bitch. His warm, portley smile on those damned commercials made me feel happy. Just like the guy that pimps those delivery diabetes testing supplies who used to be on the Quaker Oats commercials. I swear to God, every time he's on one of those diabetes commercials, I get this urge for some damned oatmeal. God damn Quakers and their subliminal mind games.

What the hell else do I miss?

Hmm......that Supermarket Sweep gameshow. Shit was hilarious.....and robot dancing. That shit needs to make a comeback. When was the last time WVU has a good mass riot/couch fire? 2005 after the Elite 8 in basketball? That's bullshit. That's the one thing I miss I can actually change. Fuck it, I'm going to go light something on fire right now.