At Monash, we experience 4 kinds of pharmacy placements. A little about each type of placement has been written by some Monash students including Pharmalliance committee members Alisha and Emma. Read ahead to find out their experiences from their January/ February placements! 1. Community: Students spend 3 weeks gaining practical experience in a local pharmacy where they learn to dispense and counsel on medications and provide health education to the general public. Students can choose to do 1 or 2 community placements. 2. Hospital: Students get 2 opportunities throughout the year to work in major hospitals in Melbourne. In here, we get a chance to work in a multidisciplinary team and contribute in treating patients with complex health conditions as well as dispensing prescriptions and observe sterile manufacturing.These placements last for 3 weeks as well. This is how my friend, Krista, found it. I remember being very nervous and apprehensive about going to my very first hospital placement. I believe everything ran smoothly due to the great organisation skills of the PEP (Professional Experience Placement) staff. It was a relief that the PEP staff took into account our residential addresses when allocating us to our hospital locations. I was allocated to complete my placement at Sunshine Hospital which was less than an hour’s worth of commuting, of which I was very grateful. The pharmacy department staff were very accommodating and welcoming. They certainly went above and beyond to ensure that we felt comfortable. Our preceptor Dorothy, was so helpful and genuinely cared for our well-being and education. She was very organised and allocated us timetables to various wards to make sure we were exposed to as much of the hospital as possible. She would even take the time out of her day to meet us for daily education sessions. We found these sessions so helpful and handy and we will never forget how awesome she made our first hospital placement to be. 3. Rural: Students have a choice to go to a rural town to participate in activities in a community pharmacy of that area and in some cases, work in a rural hospital. This placement not only trains us to be pharmacists but also demonstrates the rural lifestyle and its challenges. 4. Remote Rural: I was lucky enough have the opportunity to visit a remote area of Australia for 6 weeks. It did take up part of my summer holidays but coming to Broken Hill, a mining town in the Outback, gave me a chance to learn of the positive and negative aspects of healthcare in remote areas of Australia. Visiting Broken Hill provided me experience in a community pharmacy and in a remote hospital where healthcare workers must overcome challenges due to their location to provide their patients the best treatment possible. I’ve learned how mining affects the health of the locals and of the programs in place to enhance Aboriginal health (such as Close the Gap). The locals in Broken Hill are friendly but a stoic bunch as they have endured droughts and floods of the desert. Some patients live or work in isolated areas such as the sheep station we visited. This is why healthcare in a remote area requires specialised services such as the Royal Flying Doctors Service to fly some patients to the Broken Hill hospital or to more specialised centres in cities. In some cases, an offroads ambulance is required to drive to areas where the airplanes can’t land. I guess you can say that there’s never a dull day with healthcare in Broken Hill! Maddy, Amanda, Bryony and I visited the Royal Flying Doctors Service Clinic at Wiawera sheep station in South Australia. The clinic not only provides dental and medical care but is also a place where the community gathers. We also visited the New South Wales ambulance service. Emma, one of our Pharmalliance committee members went on a remote rural placement as well. This was what she had to say: In the field of pharmacy, there’s always so many ways to grow and expand your horizons, and this is exactly what I’m learning throughout my six week placement here in Geraldton. Now at the half-way point and looking back on my experiences so far, I’ve already learnt and experienced so much more than I would have expected, and yet there is still three weeks to go! Our first week began in a rehabilitation therapeutic community called Hope Springs Farm. Here we experienced a week in the life of a resident and worked alongside the group over a variety of tasks such as farming, gardening, baking, sports and arts and crafts. Going into this week, there was always a perceived stigma regarding dependant users of alcohol and other drugs, no matter how much you tried to ignore it. But if there was anything that this week achieved, it was completely demolishing those boundaries and opening my eyes to a whole new proportion of the community. From discussions with residents I learnt not only that of course they are all just people like you and me who in many cases were just the victims of bad circumstances both past and present, but also that through their hard work and community there on the farm, they were building new lives for themselves. Teaching themselves skills to help them in the future, and developing the traits of good teamwork and solid work ethics, in an effort to grow as individuals and move on into a new stage of life. From that week we moved into community pharmacies, and coming from a background of already working in a community pharmacy you expect that it’s all the same and it can’t be that different. But boy was I wrong! From the sense of community and personalised attention that the pharmacist shows each and every patient, to the unique OTC counselling scenarios and problems to solve, you always find yourself in new situations, and it is a great opportunity to grow and learn All of this whilst staying in one of the most gorgeous towns on the West Australian coast which leaves plenty of space for explorations and adventures on the weekends. So far this placement has definitely been so worth the four hour flight and home-sickness, and with three weeks to go, there is still so much to learn and experience. Bring it on!! Emma and Steph hiking in Western Australia The perks of doing placement in Western Australia Hope Springs Rehabilitation Centre We hope you enjoyed reading about how Monash pharmacy placements work! Next up is UNC's (University of North Carolina) placements. Check back next month for our next post!
4 Comments
Clara Kim
2/27/2018 12:18:59 pm
This is such a cool read! It's fun to see the differences and similarities of pharmacy education around the globe. I love the diverse array of experiences you guys get! Is anybody at a rural hospital too? or are all healthcare rotations in major cities only? I'd love to know!
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Alisha Cloti
3/4/2018 07:15:06 pm
Hey Clara, thanks for the feedback! So like I said in the article, it depends on the rural area you go to for an opportunity to be in hospital placement. Additionally, being a rural area, you still get an opportunity to experience healthcare as you are mostly placed in a community pharmacy. So no, not just in major cities 😊
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1/18/2019 07:28:51 am
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8/3/2023 03:06:26 am
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