On Taking Drugs

So we were coming to an end of my variety postings in the community clinic, and it's my 2nd time being posted to the pharmacy counter. Me really likey! Pharmacy I mean. Got to pick up the drugs and distribute them according to the prescription by the doctor, now I began to wonder if it's really fun to run a pharmacy.

But today we were led to the back-room to help in the packing. There were 3 of us posted there, one was doing the filling of the drug capsules, while the remaining two were involved in filling up the cream containers. Gosh it was real tiring. And when beauty is concern, none of the containers contained really nicely filled creams. There were too much container, and we need to be hurry.

I wonder what my life will come out to be like if I had to do this job every single day. I know I would enjoy taking drugs, but filling the drugs... I guess I'm not so. Initially I was sitting. But as I was finishing the big container of the cream, I started to get really agitated. Thank God I was able to go out to the counter. But to have them creams all stacked up nicely and presumable will last for a month or longer, it was pretty fulfilling no doubt.

Once out of the back-room, it was like seeing the sun again. Fresh air. Human noise. Drugs. LOADS of drugs of differnt forms and shapes and colours. From hypertensive drugs to diabetic drugs, even up to antibiotics and some other common syrups. There was also some other cabinets, filled with creams and lotions, and controlled items such as psychiatric medicine and antituberculosis, as well as drugs only to be prescribed by specialists.

It was a really busy day so to speak. The prescription came in none stop. Even with 3 medical students and one attendant taking the drugs, with one pharmacist and another attendant giving them out to the patients, the crowd outside the counter was building by the seconds.

By 12 noon, lots of middle-aged ladies complained that they'd need to leave to pick up their kids. Very chaotic really. It doesn't ease even when the other colleagues from clinical teaching came in to help out... But at least I suppose we helped the ones in charge a lot. By 1.30p.m., all the prescriptions were ready, all waiting to be distributed to the patients.

The fun thing is, when there were 5 medical students in the drugs counter, it tends to get a bit too crowded. So names of drugs were being shouted out, wondering where they are and all. And the generic names of what the drugs actually are... So it isn't that all surprising if, by the end of the day, some of the drugs in the pharmacy went missing.

And I don't really mean it that way, we did ask if we could take some of the common drugs. For flu. For gastric. For headache. And we might also went a bit further by taking some drugs for the family members as well. Hypertension drugs mostly. It was only today during the chaos that one of us asked if we could actually take the vitamin C. We were given the green light.

And so... we were munching on the vitamin C like it's candy. Every other time we pass through that big jar of container of vitamin C, we'd throw 2 tablets of them sour-y pills into our mouth.

Even better, we 'ta-pao'ed some back too. :D

2 hours later, my stock of vitamin C has reduced by 40%. With the recommended dose of 15 pills maximum per day, I really do wonder if there's such a thing called vitamin C toxicity.

And now, please don't sue me. I'm just fully utilizing my right as a medical student. I am after all, in this field. La la la....