Health Interview of a Clinical Pharmacist 

I interviewed Kelley Masters, a clinical pharmacist. Kelly works for a company named Mobe, where she works remotely (at home) and calls clients to provide guidance and help them with their medical situations. She received 3 years of undergrad, with no bachelor’s or master’s required. She then went on to 4 years of pharmacy school and received her doctorate in pharmacy degree. She then became Board Certified in Pharmacotherapy, and a Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist. I learned that Kelley calls clients and assesses the status of the patient’s health problems. From there she decides whether or not the patient should be on a certain type of medication. She also evaluates the effectiveness of certain medications patients are already on and decides if she should take them off or not. She also can diagnose patients’ problems and create a plan for their medicine. ​A takeaway I learned is that clinical pharmacists do have a lot of tasks to do in their job. They also have to evaluate and get to know their patient before making big decisions. They have to be good at talking to people and understanding their needs. She can choose if she works at home or in an office though, and her work schedule seems to be fairly flexible. It is not a physical labor job but requires much knowledge. ​

Interview Video:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#sent/QgrcJHrhwLkNhVhBwrRjHrvwhhHdvpPnVnv?projector=1

Final Reflection

I have learned and grown a lot throughout my first semester in college. When I started the semester I did not know what to expect from my classes, professors, and peers. I was oblivious to everything that would be expected of me, I found this out soon enough after the first month of the semester. I quickly realized that I cannot give half effort and have to give my all to every class, especially if I want to achieve the goals I have. I soon realized that my study habits were not good at all and that I needed to find ways to change. It was a learning experience but I started to get a hang of balancing my life in October. I also learned a lot just from being on my own in life, I learned who I like to surround myself with and what I want out of life. Overall, this semester I became more self-sufficient and learned how to be responsible for myself, whether that be studying a week in advance or making it to swim practice on time. At the beginning of the semester, I set very high expectations, almost unreasonable ones. I soon realized what I was expecting was over the top and lowered my expectations. My new expectations were to keep over a 3.5 GPA and manage my time well. I think I did a good job and achieved this goal, some days I was not the best due to procrastination but I always managed to catch up. One thing I wish I had known at the beginning of the semester was how much workload and studying I was going to have to do. I also wish I was a little more prepared for the amount of stress I get from week to week, especially with being a Division 1 athlete. Overall, I enjoyed this semester; it was a learning experience I will never forget. 

A big challenge I had to overcome this semester was studying. In high school, I got away with doing the bare minimum for each class. But I soon realized in the first month of being in college that was not the case. At the beginning of the semester, I did not start off studying that much because I felt as if I did not need it. After a few of my first exams, I realized that I just could not study the night before a test. Halfway through the semester, I started studying at least 2 hours after every chemistry class, and a week in advance for an exam of any kind. My study habits improved because I increased the amount of hours and time to study for my classes, and that was my key to success. During the semester I also have found many helpful resources that can help me succeed. One of them is the Chemistry Success Center in the Chemistry building. The center provided extra help for me when I was struggling in Chemistry, I liked to go at least twice a month to stay on track. I also enjoyed going to the writing center for help on my papers. Writing is one of my weaknesses so this was super helpful for me to improve my writing skills for my classes like history and electives. Going into next semester I am going to work on taking time to study for at least two hours for my harder nursing classes like microbiology and psychology. I also will prepare better for more exams by studying a week or two in advance. I also noticed that I study better when I understand the concepts, so going to the chemistry success center or getting a tutor is also something helpful that I will keep using to my advantage. Studying with a friend or finding fun ways to memorize concepts is always less boring and more beneficial for me too, and I definitely will be doing that more in the future. Next semester I am setting expectations/goals to do all of these things to benefit myself. 

This semester I was enrolled in the Learning Community, where I took Sociology, History, Chemistry, and Health Professions. I believe that all of these classes were good for learning the basics of health sciences, and are setting me up to be a successful nurse in the program. Some classes would have similar concepts that would tie the courses together, which showed why it was important to take these classes. I often found that my sociology class would discuss concepts that would come up in my history and health professions class. These classes made me realize how important it is to be well-rounded in everything, and how nursing is not just medical it is also social. 

This semester in health professions, there were several presentations presented to me about the different majors in the health science field. I enjoyed this because I got to see all the different career paths that I could take other than nursing. The two professions that interested me were nurse anesthetist and nuclear medicine. Anesthesia (CRNA) has always been something I have been interested in, it seems to be thrilling and I like the feeling of being able to control the patient and make sure they are safe during their surgery. It seems like CRNAs have to form a bond with the patient to form trust, and I like the thought of having a random stranger be able to trust me. In the end, I just want to help people and make them feel comfortable during an uncomfortable time in their life. Also, there seemed to be many benefits like their salary and flexibility in working hours. This makes me more appealed to working this job because I still want to be able to have time for my kids and my own life. On the other hand nuclear medicine interested me because it offers the potential to identify disease in its earliest stages. I also like how nuclear medicine technologists get to work with every system of the body like endocrine, skeletal, circulatory, and pulmonary. I feel like nuclear medicine can help save lives by diagnosing a patient’s illness, and that’s all I want is for patients to live disease-free life. This class helped me develop a parallel plan and other options if nursing does not work out for me. I believe that a parallel plan offers more stability in the process of trying to get into a certain program and it broadens horizons. Both of these majors benefit my current major because they are both on the same medical track, so they require some of the same core classes. They also provide more knowledge for me about the hospital system/ health care. After seeing all the professions that are offered, I was more open to options other than nursing. Nursing is something that I always have wanted to do because of the help, care, and collaboration I will have with patients. But I do appreciate the other horizons I was introduced to in this class, it benefited my knowledge. Overall, this semester was very stressful and overwhelming but I learned a lot that I will take with me throughout the rest of my college career.