KeePosted - ICHP

College Connection - SIUE
An Alternative Rotation Delivers
An Alternative Experience
by Brice Foose, P3, SSHP President
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Pharmacy
I recently completed a three week
alternative IPPE rotation at Illinois
CancerCare in Peoria, Illinois.
As a childhood cancer survivor, this
rotation meant a lot to me. Through
my past childhood experience, I
found motivation to learn each and
every day at the site.
Illinois CancerCare is a private practice
owned by twelve physicians that
specialize in hematology and oncology.
Five other doctors include a nonpartner
oncologist, one hospitalist,
and three gynecological oncologists
to make a total of seventeen physicians
within Illinois CancerCare.
There are eleven nurse practitioners
and two pharmacists that also practice
at the site. My preceptor, Dr.
Michele Rice, Pharm.D., BCOP, is
the clinical pharmacist at the Illinois
CancerCare. The unique pharmacy
setting includes a retail pharmacy
very close to the IV prep area.
The majority of my time was spent
in the IV prep area where I checked
doses and the patient’s lab values
to ensure proper medication safety.
Once the doses and labs were
checked, I printed the labels and
delivered them to the technicians
in the clean room for sterile product
preparation. Once the dose was
prepared, I was responsible for the
proper delivery to the administration
area, either via tube system or manual
delivery depending on the drug.
Illinois CancerCare has fifteen offsite
locations dispersed throughout
central Illinois. I was able to visit
an off-site clinic in Ottawa, Illinois.
Ottawa is one of the busiest offsite
clinics of the fifteen. The day
I happened to work in the Ottawa
clinic was no exception. The nurses
brought the orders to the pharmacy
area and I proceeded to check them.
After checking the orders, I spikeed
the bags and delivered them to the
technician in the clean room for sterile
product preparation. After the
IVs were made I delivered them to
the nurses for administration to the
patients. The treatment room was
located about fifteen feet away from
the pharmacy area. This allowed
for easy communication between
the pharmacy staff and the nurses.
Throughout the day the nurses and
the pharmacy staff communicated
back and forth to ensure exceptional
patient care.
As a second year pharmacy student at
SIUE School of Pharmacy, I had not
been through the oncology/hematology
therapeutics course, which initially
put me at a disadvantage for
this rotation. However, to compensate
for this disadvantage, I jumped at
opportunities that came up in which
I had previously obtained a wealth
of knowledge through my education.
One particular situation that
was presented to me had to do with
a patient that had undergone a Rouxen-Y
procedure. The physician wanted
to know if the oral medication,
temozolomide (Temodar), would still
be effective in treating the patient’s
glioblastoma. I remembered back
to a recent biopharmaceutics class
in which we had talked extensively
about the Roux-en-Y procedure and
how it can affect the bioavailabiltiy of
a drug. After reading a case report,
as well as analyzing the structure and
pharmacokinetic profile of temozolmide,
I was confident in making a
recommendation to the retail pharmacist
who passed the information
on to the physician. Typically in class
we would talk about blood pressure
or cholesterol medications used with
the Roux-en-Y procedure. Making a
recommendation involving a medication
used to treat a brain tumor gave
me a great sense of accomplishment.
Towards the end of my three weeks,
I was fortunate enough to spend an
unforgettable day with a nurse practitioner.
I was able to sit in on several
follow up visits. One particular
patient had breast cancer that had
25 July 2011 | KeePosted | www.ichpnet.org