first impressions

While it's still fresh, I want to give a quick overview of the first day at my new job. These are only my first impressions so they may not be accurate! 

One of the interns took me on a tour of the hospital but I think it will be a LONG time before I figure out where everything is. Lehigh Valley Health Network's Cedar Crest location is a 7 story building with around 1,000 beds and a brand new 120 bed emergency department. It's a completely different feel from the 200 bed community hospital I worked at. Some of the differences I noticed right away were not necessarily improvements though! St. Joe's has an overall much cleaner facility than LVHN's. Frankly I was surprised how dirty and dingy some places were! Another thing that amazed me is that we are allowed to have drinks at our work areas in the pharmacy. At St. Joe's I never drank enough because we could only drink in the break room and often I was too busy to make a trip back there. Also, the pharmacy doesn't have a color-coded dress policy, so you can't tell who's a tech or who's a pharmacist. There's a vast array of dress styles, which seemed a little unprofessional to me because some tended to look rather scruffy. I realize what I'm saying sounds uncomplimentary, but it's what stood out the most to me! Where I came from there were many stringent policies and rules to follow, and from what I've seen so far, LVHN has a more relaxed approach. 

I spent most of the day doing new hire paperwork and training, but also had the opportunity to label and pull a few meds. It was nice to see those familiar products. But again there were surprises! Some controlled substances were mixed in with regular drugs, not locked in a safe. There are 5 categories of controlled substances. Highest risk drugs are Schedule 1 (Marijuana, heroin, etc. Usually illegal substances.) Schedule 5 drugs have the lowest risk of abuse (example: cough medicine with codeine). At St. Joe’s all controlled substances were kept locked in a safe that only a pharmacist could access. At LVHN, some frequently used schedule 4 drugs are out in the open. I don't know this for sure yet, but it also looks like techs have access to the controlled substances safe. Makes our job easier, I guess! LVHN also has a robot that packages drugs. I see that as an improvement from St. Joe's, where we did it all manually. 

I hope to eventually work in the IV room, but that won't happen right away. I'm sure there will be many differences there too!

In this post I described the pneumatic tube system we use to send drugs throughout the hospital. At St. Joe's everyone tubed things and although it was used all the time, we didn't have someone standing there constantly sending drugs. At LVHN, someone is always at the tube station, and bins of drugs are waiting to be sent. You could spend an entire day doing only that!

A few random impressions...

 

When I figure how much time to allow myself to get to work, I not only need to think of the commute, but also take into consideration the 5 minute walk from the parking lot! That's going to be rough in bad weather. 

It will take me awhile to feel comfortable in the new environment, but it's nice to at least be familiar with the drugs. It's kind of like meeting an old friend in a new place. "Oh, hello, vancomycin 1250 mg! Nice to see you again!" 

My schedule is 6:30 am to 3 pm, and 2:30 - 11 pm every other weekend. A consistent schedule is one of the main reasons I switched jobs. It means getting up at 4:45 am, but I'm going to love getting home when it's still daylight!