Today’s pharmacists fill a multitude of roles as health care providers, but even this was a new one for UMKC pharmacy student Natalie Bishop.

Bishop is one of three UMKC pharmacy students who spent a month doing a clinical rotation at Hillside Health Care International, 埃尔德里奇维尔的一家小型非营利性诊所, 伯利兹, 这是一个距离港口城市蓬塔戈尔达仅数英里的小社区.

在希尔赛德工作期间, a young boy suffering from acute asthma came to the clinic for a refill on his inhaler. Bishop and the clinic pharmacist explained to the patient how using a spacer, 一根短塑料管连接着吸入器, would help deliver the medication to his lungs more effectively and help him better manage his asthma.

看似简单的资源, 比如吸入器的间隔片, 在这个地方能成为奢侈品吗. 诊所药剂师和毕夏普做了次佳选择, cutting up a plastic bottle and strategically applying some duct tape to craft a needed spacer for their patient to use with his inhaler.

“他们不像我们这里那样拥有所有的资源, so to be able to think on your feet and use what you do have is important,毕晓普说. “It was so cool seeing the pharmacist make one right there and help the patient moving forward.”

在主教, 哥伦比亚号上一个药学专业的学生, 密苏里州的校园, 轮岗结束后返回家乡, 莉莉爱德华兹, 他是堪萨斯大学斯普林菲尔德校区的一名学生, 密苏里州, 取代了她在伯利兹的位置. 两人有着相似的经历. The clinic in Eldridgeville is largely made up of volunteers who support a small handful of physicians and one full-time pharmacist. That meant when Bishop and Edwards weren’t working side by side with the staff pharmacist, 他们发现自己在独立工作.

“It really pushed me a lot to know things because resources are limited there,” Edwards said. “I didn’t get to look everything up before I had to answer a question. 我真的必须了解我的东西，准备好回忆起来.”

“It really pushed me a lot to know things because resources are limited there.——莉莉·爱德华兹说.

 

Carlos Olivas, a student on the Kansas City campus, completed the same rotation in January. 而主教, 爱德华兹和奥利瓦斯在诊所扮演着同样的角色, 与医生合作, medical students and physician assistant students while 配药和咨询病人, 奥利瓦斯说，他们的情况不同.

“I was actually fortunate enough to have two other pharmacy students there with me,” Olivas said. “We were able to kind of team up together where Natalie and Lily didn’t have other pharmacy students with them to help.”

这在移动诊所的日子里发挥了作用.

每个星期, doctors and students would load a van with essential medications and travel from 45 minutes to three-hours from their home clinic to remote regions and villages where they would see as many as 40 to 50 patients in a day. One long trip took Edwards and her team to a village that had not received medical care for three years.

在没有电和自来水的房子里工作, 爱德华兹是团队中唯一的药剂师, 配药和咨询病人. Before the day was over, the team had run out of antibiotics before running out of patients. 爱德华兹被迫进入解决问题的模式.

“医生来找我说, “我要这种抗生素治疗耳部感染,’我正在告诉他们, “我很抱歉, 你的下一个选择是什么? 我有这个,’”爱德华兹说。, who looked back on the experience as both stressful and extremely rewarding. “这让我大开眼界. 它确实让我走得更远，超出了我的想象.”

Problem solving became part of the regular routine for the student pharmacists as they were often dealing with limited supplies, answering questions about available medications and determining proper dosings.

"I definitely developed a lot of communication skills throughout the time I was there.——卡洛斯·奥利瓦斯

“That was really a neat experience getting to collaborate with (physician assistant and medical students) and show them what a pharmacist can do, 我们所拥有的知识,毕晓普说. “It was fun to work with them because they didn’t realize what we learn. 我们不诊断病人, but we have to learn about the diagnosis so that we can recommend the right medications.”

Those collaborations made for a rewarding experience that Olivas said he wasn’t expecting.

“讨论非常开放，”他说. “They would come to us whenever they needed any kind of expertise in our realm of ‘what is the dosing’ or ‘what do we have?’ Being able to have those open discussions was great and I definitely developed a lot of communication skills throughout the time I was there.”

Not all of their time was spent in the Eldridgeville clinic or the mobile clinics. The three also found themselves enjoying time in another public health service role, 参观当地学校，参加公共卫生博览会, 从血压检查到糖尿病筛查.

Olivas spoke to a group of school children about the need for and benefits of good nutrition and exercise. While interacting with a particular classroom of 30 to 40 third- and fourth-grade students, 大家都和他一起笑, the students at one point began telling him what they knew about carbohydrates and cholesterol.

“I was like, you’re in third or fourth grade and you’re talking to me about that,” Olivas said. “这真的很酷.”