Summer days drifting away

I am currently working on a different blogpost to detail the remaining highlights of my CSHP internship. However, as summer winds to an end, I have had the pleasure of enjoying three relatively carefree and lazy days in Ottawa before my flight back into Vancouver. Apart from pleading with my suitcase to expand like a proper Harry Potter-style trunk should, I have mostly been spending my time since my internship walking around, spending time in coffeeshops, and sleeping in. I have most definitely not been shopping!

With this post, I'd like to identify and explore some of the major themes of my summer, and perhaps to get a sense of what directions and major challenges lie ahead for me in the next year.

One of the things I did this summer was to meet and get to know many more people. My Facebook friend list hardly needs expanding, but over the course of the summer, I met staff at two pharmacies, staff at the CSHP office, hospital pharmacists and residents from across the nation, some people who live and/or work in Ottawa, and some pharmacy students from UofT and UWaterloo - and of course, I also met up with my friends occasionally. It wasn't a particularly social summer, in that I wasn't spending more time than usual with people versus by myself; rather, it was a summer where things were constantly changing, and I continued to meet new people and learn about their backgrounds and personalities. To me this is important because I don't particularly feel very confident about talking to new people, and I don't feel particularly interesting. However, being the BC boy while in Ontario or Halifax does make me interesting. To me, this means that I need to better define myself and also to pursue things more wholeheartedly, so that I don't let me stereotype myself and that I don't have to try and tell a story about something I did halfway.

Another, somewhat related, piece is how I have (finally) started to take some small steps towards my career development. In the two pharmacies I worked/schooled at this summer, I was able to counsel and although I am far from satisfied, I got some valuable experience and understand the depth to which I need to "learn my stuff." And of course, through my work with CSHP, I have had the opportunity to learn about the scope of hospital pharmacy, the issues that face our profession, and to network with some pharmacy leaders in various settings. I have had to push myself to put my best face forward; to smile for my patients, to take two seconds to think, to strive to speak clearly and to emote; and to act professionally. I know that I have a lot to improve on - things like not yawning during meetings, trying to make my facial expressions not so monotonous or angry, improving my posture, and limiting my fidgeting. But after doing relatively well in all three settings over my summer, it is safe to say that I have a little confidence boost going right now.

Another theme for the summer has been for me to take initiative on a more independent basis. Part of this is the realization that pharmacy school can only do so much for me, and that much of the learning that we need to accomplish isn't going to be force-fed to us in lectures. So this summer, I have pursued a Directed Studies project that is somewhat unconventional (ie. looking for a project before the preceptor), tried to pull together some pharmacy-related notes, and brought up new ideas for projects I could do with CSHP during my internship. Going into fourth year, I am definitely excited that I can worry less about the confines of school-related requirements (eg. memorize this list of side effects), but I also know that I need to stay motivated and committed to my ongoing learning and revision, as I will inevitably get busy with other stuff before long. In order to me to effectively take the initiative, I need to follow-through with what I decide to do.

Although there might be more, the last theme I can think of is an increased understanding of pharmacy and of life outside of the Lower Mainland. From spending time in Ottawa and Halifax, I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet people from all across Canada and to learn about their jobs and their lives. For example, the simple question, "What draws you to PEI?" sparked a fantastic conversation about the trusting people, the red and fertile earth, the readily available seafood and potatoes, and their "ski hill" (which is about 10m high in elevation). While I can't say I understand Canada (like Lily and Jon might from their trans-national car trip) or the full range of hospital pharmacy practice that the people I met could represent, I think I am more aware that there is all this diversity, culture, and range of career paths and niches. I have a better understanding of why the pharmacists I met love working in the hospital environment and how they got to where they are today.

The second, loaded question (which I can only skim the surface of in this post) is where do I go from here? One of the initiatives that I undertook this summer was inspired by the strategic planning session that we did at CSHP SES with the Council. At this full-day session, we helped contribute ideas and priorities in an effort to map out where CSHP should be and how we wanted to get there over the next three years. As I reflected about this concept, I realized that even though I don't have a "life goal" yet, I could still benefit from a strategic plan for myself.

To explain this, it might be helpful for me to explain what a strategic plan is composed of. You start with the mission, which answers the simple question "Who are you?". From the mission and your current position, challenges, and ideas for the future, you develop a vision, which is where you want to be in three years (or whichever timeframe you like). From that concept, you develop just a few strategic directions that will help you achieve that vision, and each strategic direction would have a few strategies and objectives attached to it. One of the important things about this plan is to wordsmith the objective appropriately, such that it is measurable. For example, instead of "Get enough sleep," my objective is "Achieve 8h of bedtime daily, excepting special occasions, 100% of the time."

I've developed my strategic plan already, and so the challenge now is to consistently use it and to record how I'm doing. In case you are wondering, I have developed a plan with three strategic directions around pharmacy knowledge and skills, relationship building, and committing to a healthy lifestyle, with a sub-strategy of organizational effectiveness which will hopefully help me plan my time. I had also been considering a strategic direction around broadening my horizons, but in the end, I decided not to implement it because I really wanted to focus on the three that I have already identified.

In regards to major challenges for the next year:

• Independent learning
• Applying for residency
• Improving my effectiveness during SPEP rotations
• Finding things that are motivating for me to do, and a frame of mind that motivates me to work hard every day

P.S. Don't take the title of this post seriously. I have had no scandalous summer nights to report.