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Yesterday, I had to attend a session called the "Cleveland Clinic Experience." As part of the development of the employees here at the Cleveland Clinic, a one day session is held for all employees to come together and discuss ways to improve patient care. It's a great idea- a little bit crowded in my session (with 40,000 employees there's only so many open spots), but still a great idea. I had signed up for a slot yesterday, and off I went.

My small group was filled with diverse group of individuals- environmental services, finance, schedulers, materials, operations, and me, being the sole pharmacist. There was one nurse, but the rest were related to some other indirect patient related sector.  We came upon the question, "how are you related to patient care?" Off the answers came: "cleaning up the rooms" "organizing pre-ops for lung transplants" "planting the specimens for microbio labs" to "supplying the tools for the surgeries", and so on. I stated that pharmacists were the "last line before the drug is administered to the patient." As an inpatient staff pharmacist, I do not necessarily get to actually see the patient that much-but still, nonetheless,  the inpatient pharmacist is the last one to see the order before it gets processed and given to the nurse to administer.

The next question came. "What words among these do you feel is most important in your line of work?" They had the words, "compassion, responsibility, knowledge, integrity, teamwork", and so on. I chose the words integrity and teamwork.

Teamwork is needed (or integrity with others), especially for inpatient care. Sure, there may be a pharmacy specialist within a certain area of specialty of the hospital, but that does not stop a physician/nurse practitioner from inputting the wrong medication or dose into the CPOE orders. I may get the order, but the pharmacy tech needs to make it or deliver it. I may be confused and may need to call another pharmacist who is working in another area of the hospital.  Without teamwork, nothing would ever get done. None of our medications would get delivered, mistakes would occur, and so on. For me, I know, I need to have teamwork. At times (more like, a lot), I'll call a specialist and ask questions- to get the background story about the patient, why they may be using the drug, and so on. The more you ask, the more you'll be calling, and the more you'll get to know the specialists on the floor.(even if they are annoyed by all your questions. Just kidding, of course). Not only that, the relationship with one's pharmacy technicians are important too. I'm often asking the technicians what they see on the floor, what medication a nurse may be looking for, what to do with pyxis problems and so on.  Thus, our relationships with each other are important. It's not like all pharmacy professionals have to be best friends; it's more that those relationships have to be there, in order to provide a solid teamwork to get the medication to the patient.

Integrity is most important to me.  Why are we pharmacists and what is the purpose? We should be helping people, no matter what, making sure the patient gets the correct medication-the right drug, for the right indications.

I recently had a high school student shadow me for the afternoon.  I brought her around to most of the satellites, chatting away about pharmacy, as she eagerly listened and asked questions. I had forgotten how it felt to be like that- to know nothing about pharmacy but so eager to learn.  Sure, I've done pre-pharmacy educational programs at Umich before, but they had had some type of experience with pharmacy. But someone with a fresh mind? I tried to convey my excitement for pharmacy to its utmost ability. Everything I told her, she soaked up with crazy wide eye awe. I showed her the pre-pack machine and she let out a big "WOW"... it was extremely cute. I pass by that machine all the time- I think it's practical, but I don't mutter a "wow" every time. It's more of a "did the meds come out yet? Do they need to be checked?" Imagine if we all let out big sighs of "wow"s after every medication order. What a difference the mood atmosphere would be in the pharmacy.

After having her shadow me and after my Cleveland Clinic experience, I feel that I'm beginning to look at pharmacy in a different light- as inpatient pharmacists what more can we do to improve the integrity and teamwork within our healthcare systems? 

Pharmacy is exciting-we do everything in our ability and knowledge to help heal the patient.  We work with integrity- we have the right to reject or approve a medication order; if it's not right, and we work with integrity, we have the right to refuse it. I lalso ook at integrity another way. An article in Stanford's encyclopedia of philosophy stated that "Persons of integrity do not just act consistently with their endorsements, they stand for something: they stand up for their best judgment within a community of people trying to discover what in life is worth doing."

We have so much power to improve patient care- simply with integrity and teamwork. In life, that is worth doing. Such simple concepts to munch on......