Cory's Blog

Let’s go ahead and make an assumption here. I am going to assume a couple of things about y’all, my loyal readers. First off, you are all pretty smart. How do I know that? Well, you are probably reading this because you are interested in/are coming/currently attend USC. Way to go! We just don’t accept anybody off of the streets. As you may have been able to tell, it is quite competitive to be a Gamecock. Oh, and my other assumption is that you all have a pretty good sense of humor. How should I know that? Well, you are reading MY blog aren’t you, and I am quite the funnyman, if I do say so myself.

Now that these two assumptions have been made, what do they have to do with what I want to talk to y’all about? Let me say that smart and funny folks tend to watch smart and funny TV shows, like The Office. On The Office, the corporate office and its members often visit Michael Scott and the rest of his gang down at the Scranton branch, usually with hilarious consequences. Michael also tends to scoff at the rules and procedures set by the nebulous “corporate” office, and typically leaves his superiors at the corporate office in New York dumbfounded, frustrated, and oftentimes at a loss for an explanation for his actions and behaviors. .

I was reminded of the idea of the “corporate” office because this past week while manning the prescription counter at the local Target, we received a visit from our own “nebulous corporate office”. In all reality, they are not some ruling voice that manifests itself in the form of faceless emails and memos, but they do a pretty solid job of keeping in touch with our pharmacy manager Paul. So, when the whole corporate crew, whose influence stretched all over the Target pharmacies across not just South Carolina, but the entire Southeast, showed up, Paul felt very comfortable talking with them. .

They visit to check up on the store, make sure it is being run well. Overall, the entire “corporate crew” seemed very satisfied with the visit and how our particular pharmacy was being run. I cannot say that I played a big role in our success, considering I have been there just about three weeks, but it sure is nice being a part of such a great store. The traditional “cold faceless” stereotypes were thrown out the door as all the visitors made an effort to greet me, the intern, and make sure I was enjoying my time at our store. Of course I told them I was, and that I also had a fine experience as a student on rotation while at the Target back in Arizona. In fact, I was so relaxed with them visiting I didn’t even stop eating my lunch while they stuck around. Theirs might have been an important “corporate” visit, but when a man’s hungry, he’s hungry! .

Just as soon as it seemed they were coming in and giving Paul and the rest of us our feedback, they were out the door and calm was restored to the walls of the pharmacy. With a positive visit behind us, we could get back to our normal daily job: serving our patients. Although it wasn’t as funny as a visit from corporate on The Office, in the long run I think it is better for the pharmacy that we don’t have any “shenanigans” to deal with.. We can leave the comedy to the professionals at the Scranton branch! Take care! .

Posted by Cory at 05:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Who doesn’t love a three day weekend? Go ahead and raise those hands high. Just as I suspected: nobody doesn’t enjoy a nice three day weekend off, be it from work or school. This past weekend (yes I know it is Wednesday, but I cannot believe how fast time flies when you are working) I got to enjoy a three-day weekend. However, it wasn’t just any ol’ run of the mill three-day weekend. No sir, I got to spend it at the 2008 South Carolina Pharmacy Association convention at the Crowne Plaza resort on Hilton Head Island!

While I live right off the island in Bluffton for the summer, I wasn’t going to miss out on the chance enjoy some time right on the beach. Several students from the College of Pharmacy were going, and since I was an officer in ASP (the academy of student pharmacists) our president “suggested” (and by suggested I mean she made it mandatory) to go. I had no problem with this decree whatsoever. Go ahead twist my arm because spending three days at the beach with a bunch of my classmates sounded soooooo bad!(wink!)

Most of us arrived on Thursday night. I had no problem getting there early since it was about a 25-minute drive from my aunt and uncle’s place. We all got checked in and headed out for dinner. The crew wanted seafood, and since I have some experience on the island, I suggested a place called Steamers. It was a good call, although I am still wondering who said we were having seafood, because I think half of us got non seafood dinners. Either way, everyone agreed I had made a good recommendation. Having started the weekend off right with a solid food recommendation (a specialty of mine) I was ready to get back to the hotel and rest up for the rest of the weekend.

Friday morning kicked off with some student programming brought to us by a company that places pharmacists in jobs. We learned about the dysfunctions of a team and had a fun team building exercise. Please bear with me as I describe the exercise, but it involved wrapping up a member of our team from head to toe in newspaper. Lucky our team was skilled with the tape and the USA Today, not to mention our “mummy” was quite small in stature, giving us a smaller surface area to have to cover. We won for the fastest time, and in my opinion the best wrap job, but I suppose they wanted to spread the wealth around.

After our fun wrapping affair came the USC and MUSC alumni luncheons. Since we got to the USC campus, our crew enjoyed lunch with a few of the alumni while we heard from our campus dean, Dean Rowen, as well as the South Carolina College of Pharmacy’s overall head, Dean Dipiro. I must say that it was very interesting to get to know some of these former USC students and to see what interesting things they are doing in the state to promote the profession of pharmacy in South Carolina.

With the lunch out of the way, it was time for most of us to hit the beach for an afternoon of some pharmacy “phun” in the sun. We could not have picked a better afternoon for the beach, with the cool breeze and bright sunshine over the picturesque Atlantic Ocean; you could simply not ASP met for our first meeting of the year. We had to meet early to get going on all of the fun ideas and projects for the upcoming year. Finally, the end of Friday was spent at the gala where the new officers and representatives of the SCPhA were sworn in for the upcoming year. Among them was our own Assistant Dean, Dr. Fuhrman(were so proud!). Following this ceremony, the convention was treated to a comedian/entertainer. This was no ordinary entertainment however. Our entertainer was able to “read the minds” of the audience as he wowed us with his ability to tell audience our horoscope signs, pick out playing cards that some of us had seen, and even reading the mind of who a girl and naming who her first kiss was! She nearly fainted, but the rest of us were truly blown away by this guy’s uncanny ability. Despite all of the fun, we had to get to bed at a descent hour because the fun was coming fast and early Saturday!

Did I just say something about early Saturday? Oh, yes, bright and early at 6 AM on Saturday the day got going with the Pharmacy “Phun” Run. A few of the other students braved the early morning… well it was that cold or dark, but I think it was just brave of us to be up so early to run . Out with us to run was Dean Dipiro as well, although he is more of a runner than most of us out there. Case in point: our ASP president Danielle (SCCP P3) and I kept up with Dr. Dipiro through the entire run, but when we finished, he kept right on going! In fact, Danielle myself and another student went out to the beach to continue our workout. When we were nearly finished, Dr. Dipiro came out ot the beach and never stopped going! The man was an inspiration, especially so early on a Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon was all about the SWAG. You know, the “Stuff We All Get”. We got all of this “stuff” at the convention’s Expo event where vendors from all realms of pharmacy came to show us what goodies they had for us. Everyone from the major retail pharmacies to hospitals and even a company showing off their shoes for the pharmacist on his feet all day were there to try and get us to work for or buy from them. Most of them had some fun goodies for us to take home with us to help us to remember who to call when we wanted to buy some comfortable shoes for our long days on rotation in the pharmacy.

The convention really came to a close for most of us that Saturday night at the final big party. Now, I have neglected to tell you all that the theme of this weekend was all about sports. So, for the final shindig on Saturday, we were supposed to dress up as an athlete or our favorite sports team’s gear. I decided to do both and give it my all for the costume contest. With my Chicago Cubs jersey on, my hat in place on my head, and my pant legs pulled up high to reveal blue stirrup socks, I was ready for the party! The competition was stiff in the costume contest, as I had to compete against a football player, an Anna Kournikova look alike, and our own Dean Dipiro as a soccer player. Despite some heavy crowd support for Anna Kournikova I came out the victor! My prize was a two foot high trophy with “MVP of 2008 SCPhA Convention” written on it. Upon receiving my 1st place trophy I requested the microphone from the emcee and made an unforgettable victory speech that went a little like this:

“I would just like to say that this is the first time in 100 years that a person wearing a Cubs uniform has held a championship trophy”

It was received to a chorus cheers and after that moment of glory the night continued with much dancing, music, and good times for all!

So there you go, my convention weekend in a not so nutshell. Despite this rather lengthy entry, I still feel like barely scratched the surface of my weekend of good times. However, much like all good things, this past weekend included, this post will now come to a bittersweet ending. You all take care and keep on enjoying the sweet summertime!

Posted by Cory at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Allow me a second to please confirm something on my calendar. Hold on, yes, it is indeed summertime. That is why it is so puzzling that I would hit you with a quiz right about… now! Question: what is the “symbol” of pharmacy? I’ll give you a moment to let that marinate. Got any guesses? Well, the correct answer is the mortar and pestle. Yes, back in “the day” old-timey pharmacists would mix and grind their concoctions in a mortar and pestle. However, the modern day has brought about mostly pre-made medications and few opportunities to “compound” orders with a mortar in pestle.

I used that rather lengthy introduction to bring up something that occurred the other day in the pharmacy. We received TWO prescriptions for compounds. One was for a steroid/moisturizing cream and the other was for something called “miracle mouthwash.” The lotion just required mixing of equal parts of each of the ingredients, but that mouthwash, oh boy it allowed me to dust off the good ol’ fashioned mortar and pestle and bring it back to pharmacy’s roots.

To begin, I had to crush up five antibiotic tablets, which was a thrill for me to get to use the mortar and pestle to do the crushing. In addition to the tablets, I got to open up some capsules and add that to the mix. I then had to slowly add an antihistamine suspension and mix it all together. Finally, I added water to bring the mouthwash up to the correct volume and voila: miracle mouthwash!

Needless to say, I had a good time turning back the clock in the pharmacy and getting a chance to some hands on compounding experience. Although a rarity in the modern pharmacy, compounding can be fun, especially since I had a whole semester’s worth under my belt from my compounding lab in the spring.

So there you go, my “throwback” day in the pharmacy and all the fun I had making lotion and mouthwash. I can only hope that you are having half of the fun that I had the other day. Take care!

Posted by Cory at 07:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have you detected a theme about my posts this summer? I know that I have and that theme is that I haven’t been posting much. I gotta say that I am sorry about my lack of posts. Call it a lack of time or a lack of effort on my part, but I haven’t really been keeping y’all quite in the loop. So, let me let you in on what my summer job is all about.

Ah, yes, the good ol’ fashioned summer job. The past two summers I have been lucky enough to be an orientation leader, and then a team leader. The summer my orientation gig I had the opportunity to learn all about the fun and excitement of the food and beverage industry by trying my hand at waiting tables. However, with my orientation eligibility used up and my current South Carolina pharmacy internship hours at zero, the serving gig was going to have to wait. Yes, this summer is all about growing up and getting a “big boy” job in a pharmacy.

The road to my current position began way back during Spring Break when I was down in Hilton Head. I decided to get the ball rolling on my summer job and applied for work at the local Target pharmacy. The wheels were in motion and I was going to have a summer job in the pharmacy here, but that wasn’t good enough for the Human Resources man Chuck. He mentioned to me a special Target pharmacy summer internship program that would last 10 weeks. There was only one problem: There weren’t enough weeks in the summer for that AND my school REQUIRED rotation. At the time it didn’t look like the internship was going to happen, but after a few calls and an over the phone interview with the intern coordinator, the fine folks at Target were willing to shorten my internship down to 8 weeks.

So there you go, my story of how I ended up here, in Hilton Head, interning at the Target Pharmacy. I started last Monday, and so far my first week has gone pretty darn well. The pharmacy manager, Paul, has been very welcoming and helpful to me, as well as the other pharmacist and technicians. I have been learning their system and all of their daily routines. I must say they are also pretty patient to put up with all of my questions. Although I feel like I am picking up on things pretty well, I still have a ways to go. Lucky for me I have seven more weeks to go!

Anyways, there is my long awaited post about my current summer job. Nothing too exciting like leading new freshman around USC at orientation, but still enjoyable, not to mention relevant to my future profession. But anyways, I best be getting out of here, but before I go I hope that your summer is going well and that you are enjoying your time in the sunshine (and wearing that sunscreen!). I promise to try and do a better job of keeping up with my blogs, but I’ll tell you what, I have really enjoyed putting the “break” in summer break. That’s all now folks! Take care!

Posted by Cory at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)