June 8th

Today I went to UPMC Beacon Hospital for the day. I spent the morning watching the technician fill the Pyxus machine. The Beacon Hospital is either the only or one of the only pharmacies in Ireland with one of these machines. For anyone that doesn't know what the machine is: they are computer controlled medication cabinets that are placed on different hospital wards. It keeps inventory counts after each dispensing/refill. It also allows for the tracking of who is opening/taking stock from the cabinets. That way it tracks inventory better and deters potential stealing.

I also helped count out some medications--for the few that come in bulk bottles instead of blister packaging. It was weird though because they don't have a counting tray like in the USA. Instead it is a metal triangle that you pour out the tablets on and then based on how many rows it forms you can see how many tablets are there. The only bad thing is that it really only works for round tablets and definitely not capsules.

In the afternoon, I observed one of the pharmacists on one of the wards. She takes their medication record and checks doses and writes down comments for the regimens. But after that, the rest of the afternoon was very slow...i put a couple of things away...stamped a bunch of invoices...and sat for a long time.

And the pharmacy isn't open on the weekends! Only Monday-Friday...I found this incredibly weird but I guess they have the pyxis machines on the wards...