Vivian’s Pharm Diary

March Volunteer Hours: 6 Semester Volunteer Hours:18 I can't believe it's already the end of March and that we only have approximately 1 month lest until the last day of class. In just one month, I will be a new graduate (once again) and a masters degree holder! I am so excited. This semester was so much better than last semester for me academically, mentally, financially, socially and much more. I have learned so much within this 1 year in this program. We just finished our psychopharmacology unit last week and I was nervous for it because of my lack of a neurology background, but I did fairly well once again. That was our last medical pharmacology unit! As stated in my last post, I have definitely mastered studying for med Pharm and I am so happy about that accomplishment. I feel like it will help me greatly in medical school! We are now studying for the NBME and I am nervous for this exam simply because of the content overload. It will contain every med Pharm topic that we c

 February Volunteer Hours: 6 Semester Volunteer Hours:12 This month came and left pretty fast. It started with the reproductive unit and our first cell control exam. Both of these went pretty well for me! I heavily enjoyed the reproductive unit because it touched on a lot of diseases that we don't have much information on and aren't discussed often like polycystic ovarian syndrome and uterine fibrosis. I also liked how we discussed these diseases because they are still very prevalent in communities. In addition, contraceptives are very common and for that fat, it was more fun for me to study. Overall, I do believe improved tremendously on how to study for my exams this semester! I always go back and watch what I may not have understood during lecture and always use active memory and recall with practice quizzes and information dumps! These methods have improved my grade and I can't wait to take this with me to medical school! I also volunteered at the hospital only twice th

January Volunteer Hours: 6 Semester Volunteer Hours: 6  I have made it through my first 2 weeks back since the break, and I have made it through the 1st month in the new year! This definitely calls for celebration. Since I've been back, I've volunteered at Touro on Thursday's from 4-7pm. Last semester was great but I know this semester will be much better. I've gotten a hang of living alone in a new city and how to properly navigate studying for the exams in this program. I am so confident for this semester, especially since I will be graduating in just a few months. As we approach graduation, of course I still need to fulfill the requirements and units of this semester. Currently, we are on the reproductive unit. Luckily, this is one of my fields of interest so I'm not having any problems understanding everything. I seem to have gotten the hang with med Pharm but I definitely need to get a grip on my other classes being that there are so many presentations this sem

November Volunteer Hours: 3 Semester Volunteer Hours: 19 This month, I volunteered at the hospital once during the first week of November. Unfortunately, The rest of the month was spent out of town so that was all the volunteering that I did this month. I spent over a week in my hometown, Houston, for Thanksgiving break and it was honestly a time of rest for me! Prior to going back home, we finished up our Cardiovascular unit and breezed through our Renal/Pulmonary unit. I enjoy learning about medications that effect each system, their benefits and side effects and when to use them. Around this time of the semester, I just need a constant reminder to not get lazy until Christmas Break because that's when the semester really ends. I semi-struggled through the Renal/Pulmonary unit simply because my mind was telling me that the semester was over and that I was on break even though that was not tru just yet. Despite such, I persevered through those units. Gratefully we now have 1 more

 October Volunteer Hours: 9 Semester Volunteer Hours: 16 I believe we are more than half way through our 1st semester and I can definitely say that I'm still hanging on! This past month, I was able to start volunteering weekly at Touro LCMC. My shifts are every Thursday from 4pm-7pm in the Emergency Department and so far, I've completed 3 shifts. I chose to volunteer in an ED because I do see myself becoming a physician in the future and would love to further explore the hospital environment. My tasks consist of dressing the beds once patients have been discharged, helping deliver food to patients, walking patients from the ED to Fast Track and more. I started about 3 weeks ago and I did notice that, sometimes, I may need to ask for new tasks to do simply because everything is usually already taken care of by hospital staff. Despite that, I have had a good time overall because I feel like I'm learning so much. The other day, I was able to read a few ECG/ EKG readings becaus

September Volunteer Hours: 2 Semester Volunteer Hours: 7 Oh how this month flew by! This month held 2 (about to be 3) exam days, lots of lectures and lots of study days! We definitely did not waste time getting into various medications, their mechanisms of acton, and their side effects during the 1st month of this program. Thankfully, my background in being a pharmacy technician trainee stepped in right on time. It had been a time consuming, yet speedy and interesting start of the semester! This month, I went ahead and volunteered with Project Pious during their annual Feed The Hungry event. This event took place on campus, as we all physically made sandwiches for a local food shelter. We made over 100 sandwiches and packaged them amongst little snacks like raisins and granola bars. I chose to volunteer at this event because, not only was it taking place here on campus, it sounded like it was going to be a rewarding experience because we were physically making an impact on our communit