After graduation, I started practicing as a hospital pharmacist. For that reason, I have not performed any MedsCheck thusfar. Recently, I started working with at a FHT, which again, is not a setting where MedsChecks are conducted. However, I have worked a few casual shifts at a Shoppers Drug Mart lately. As much as I sought to, I found it almost impossible to perform MedsChecks during any of the shift that I worked, particularly the daytime shifts. There was never any pharmacist overlap, which made setting aside 20 – 30 minutes per MedsCheck an unattainable goal in that busy store. And the idea of doing a 3 – 5 minute MedsCheck at the cash counter did not sit well with me.
While I haven’t performed any MedsChecks, I do promote them. For example, at a pre-hab surgery class that I teach at the hospital, I encourage patients to get MedsChecks done at their community pharmacies so that they can bring into the hospital an accurate list of their home medications upon admission for their surgeries. At the FHT, a lot of the patients’ electronic medication record is incomplete. I encourage these patients to set up appointments with their community pharmacist and bring in a copy of their latest MedsCheck to their next doctor’s appointment so that their profiles may be updated.
Although I haven’t directly engaged in MedsChecks, I do perform a hospital-variation of it, known as Medication Reconcillation, or MedRec. MedRecs involve performing best possible medication histories where the patients’ home medication information is gathered by interviewing patients and/or patients’ family members and by using patients’ pharmacy profiles or institutional MARs. The idea is to create an accurate list of patients’ home medications, giving the attending physician and other health care professionals some history on the patient.
At the moment, I am busy working between the hospital and FHT. At some point in the future, I do plan and hope to go back into community practice on a part-time or casual basis. One of the things that I will be looking for with a potential employer would be an environment, set-up and management that will promote the idea of MedsChecks.
Israa R.
Living MedsCheck 