cc licensed flickr photo shared by stevendepolo

Lately I’ve had several colleagues ask me about practice change.  How do we boldly move forward in a new era where we are taking responsibility for drug therapy decisions and prescribing for our patients?  How do we brush up on our clinical skills and learning if we feel unprepared or not knowledgeable enough to take on this role?

I don’t know about you, but for many years I would do the basic CEUs, get them done for credit, and move on.  Need 15?  Got ’em.  I may have picked up the odd lesson in something I’m interested in or read a monograph for a new drug out of necessity because I was dispensing it more, but the learning often didn’t translate into my practice.  After the credit, much of the learning is forgotten.

What I have discovered in the course of changing my practice is that learning has to be relevant and integrated into my daily work for it to be useful.  For example, I don’t know how many CEUs I’ve done over the years on Diabetes…but I never could remember the incretin system.  DPP4 Inhibitor verses incretin mimetic?  Nada… Until I had a patient I was managing who was started on one.  Then when I re-read the guidelines, the monographs, re-learned the incretin system, etc.  I never forgot it again.  I had probably looked up the product monographs of each of the gliptins and liraglutide a dozen times when needing to counsel a patient, but it stuck with me now because it mattered.  Because I wasn’t simply counselling on side effects, I was making decisions regarding drug therapy for the patient.  I had chosen to take on the responsibility of medication management  which involved making changes in therapy. ie/ the buck stopped with me.  It created a learning curve that I had to dive into.  But now I make those type of recommendations on a regular basis.  And when I follow-up with those patients, find out how my therapy changes have affected them both for outcome and ADRs, my learning is multiplied.

What I am saying is that it has to start somewhere.

In the course of talking with colleagues I always ask them what their passion is within pharmacy.  If they don’t know, I ask them what medical condition or drug class is most interesting to you.  Did you love microbiology? (I hated it!)  But if you do, then start there.  Find out what the indication is for the antibiotic prescriptions you are dispensing (a convo with the patient will usually do) and create a learning curve for yourself.  The first few times you may need to look up the empiric therapy for a pediatric bladder infection.  But after a few, it will be automatic to adapt an Rx from Amoxil to Suprax for a child who had no urinalysis done.  After engaging that parent and making the choice to take that responsibility, you’ll never forget what you’ve learned and will apply it to other patients.

That’s the beginning of practice change.  Will you make some mistakes & occasionally feel foolish or incompetent?  Sure you will.  Think of all the mistakes from other prescribers you make calls on every day.  Our entire career we keep learning and improving, but the end result is better health care and knowing that you are making a huge difference in the lives of your patients.