I still remember how it all began. Upon knowing my training site, I had mixed feelings, albeit more on the unhappy side. After all, I was hoping for somewhere in the west where the rental fee would be cheaper than the central. I was familiar with Toa Payoh area. I spent my first 2 years in Singapore around that area so I have some fond memories. My worst nightmare is the fact that it is a relatively "old" estate with most people speaking Mandarin or dialects. Certainly, it would be a big barrier to me.
Fast forward 9 months later, I am extremely glad and thankful to God for his blessings. Nothing is perfect. As much as I was frustrated with all the communication barriers, I had more things to be grateful especially when I heard my friends' experiences elsewhere.
Firstly, I had a fantastic preceptor. Wow! She is just awesome! I am a complain king and a very negative person, yet I have nothing to complain about my preceptor. I think that suffices as a testimony of her qualities. She was very caring and helpful, even for things which were not directly under her such as my projects etc. She helped me with additional reading materials, comments, as well as simple questions like "How are you?" or "How is everything?". She knew I had language issues and I was not tasked to do queue counter at all. I could expect a massive jam if I were stationed there. Haha. She made other pre-regs (who can speak mandarin) to do there. So yup, I really appreciate that. And to be truthful, I almost shed tears on the last day seeing her. Haha.. After my experience with the most terrible preceptor a few years back, I know how I lucky I am to get someone the exact opposite.
Secondly, I never felt lonely. My first day happened to be the first day of other people too: 2 attachment students and 1 senior pharmacists. Thus, there were others whom as blur as me and we could learn together. I think it would be pretty akward if I was the only new staff back then. Yup! The other pharmacists there are extremely helpful too. I am not someone who will do/say things I am unsure of. So I am glad these people are always helpful everytime I need to verify information/things I have found out, instead of going out gungho and saying/doing wrong things. The rest of the staff are relatively youthful so we could connect pretty well and it was another bonus point. Overall, the dynamic of the place was quite good. Generally people helped out one another instead of shouting/screaming at one another.
Saturday was the end of everything. As expected, my group lost the project presentation. From the start, I had no confidence and thought the group doing HDLC stood higher chance. My project had no statistics so it was just like brainless ramblings. I thought it was a hopeless project until at one point my sup told you "You don't get so caught up with the fact that it has no statistics..". Other than that, I don't think drugs were the focus of the project and it could have been difficult to convince people about it. As expected, even the examiners were very very anal with regards to medicines. So yeah it just reinforced my stand that pharmacists are just a bunch of delusional and self-absorbed people who try to link everything to drugs so that they can 'boast' their contribution. I just can't make them see that falls are multi-factorials. Even healthy people (not on medicines) like you and I can fall if the floor is wet, for an example. Similarly, someone who is blind and on tonnes of "medicines which may increase fall risk" may still not fall if they are supervised in everything they do. These just show that drugs factor is not the only thing which may cause someone to fall! Oh well, too bad if you can't (or if you REFUSE) to see that.
Now I am having the last laugh. I think the people selected my topic hoping to win by the virtue of novelty of the project (nursing homes). The winner this time was something about intervention to improve lipid control. HAHA! Imagine if they selected the other group: intervention to improve diabetes, lipid, AND hypertension control. The winner would have been obvious.
So here I am at home now. I am only waiting for my future posting. Going to a new and different place will certainly be scary. But this time, I will place my faith in the Lord. Just like how He had given me the best in the past 9 months, I pray that He will place me somewhere I can grow and have enough support. After all, I am still a green, incompetent, and inexperienced newbie.
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