Pharmacy Field Experience Essay

Early on in life I was fortunate enough to experience first hand how important the profession of pharmacy was through my parents. My parents graduated from the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy. They went on to have strong careers in Indian Health Service. Hearing stories when they would come home of how they impacted a patients a life captivated me from a very young age. Through the blessing of having two parents as practicing pharmacists, I decided early on that I would pursue the career of pharmacy and attempt to help patients like my parents had done before me. However, it has been recently through the experience awarded to me by the college through IPPE as well as working at an independent pharmacy, that I have been able to expound upon my understanding of what it truly means to

Again, this was my first time stepping foot in a retail chain setting as a intern so I was very nervous because I know they have a tendency to be much stricter than other settings. As I am filling, a patient walks up to the counsel window for a question. The pharmacist walked over and I tried my best to listen in on the conversation. The patient was prescribed an opioid and was very nervous about taking it because she had heard very bad things on the news. She had never taken a controlled medication. My preceptor was able to breakdown in simple terms how to take the medication safely. She gave recommendations such as only taking half a pill to start with in effort to see how the medication might affect the patient. She was able to provide information in such an elegant, calming manner that the patient seemed to be much more comfortable with taking her medication. The experience I was able to pull from this is education is a key aspect of who a pharmacist truly is. The way my preceptor helped her patient is something that I intend to weave into my practice as an aspiring