Today’s pharmacists fill a multitude of roles as health care providers, but even this was a new one for 威尼斯人娱乐城 pharmacy student Natalie Bishop.
毕晓普是威尼斯人娱乐城药学专业的三名学生之一，他们花了一个月的时间在国际希尔赛德医疗中心进行临床轮转。国际希尔赛德医疗中心是一家小型非营利诊所，位于伯利兹的埃尔德里奇维尔，一个距离港口城市蓬塔戈尔达只有几英里的小社区。
在她在希尔赛德工作期间，一个患有急性哮喘的小男孩来诊所补充吸入器。 毕晓普和诊所药剂师向病人解释了如何使用间隔器，一根连接吸入器的短塑料管，将药物更有效地输送到他的肺部，并帮助他更好地控制哮喘。
看似简单的资源，如吸入器的间隔器，在世界的这个地区可能是奢侈品。 诊所药剂师和毕晓普做了一件第二好的事情，他们剪开一个塑料瓶，有策略地用一些管道胶带制作了一个所需的间隔物，让病人和吸入器一起使用。
“They don’t have all the resources down there like we do here, so to be able to think on your feet and use what you do have is important,” Bishop said. “It was so cool seeing the pharmacist make one right there and help the patient moving forward.”
After Bishop, a pharmacy student on the Columbia, Missouri campus, returned home after completing her rotation, Lily Edwards, a student at 威尼斯人娱乐城’s campus in Springfield, Missouri, took her place in Belize. 两人有着相似的经历。 埃尔德里奇维尔的诊所主要由志愿者组成，他们为少数医生和一名全职药剂师提供支持。 That meant when Bishop and Edwards weren’t working side by side with the staff pharmacist, they found themselves working on their own.
“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. I really had to know my stuff and be ready to recall it.”
“It really pushed me a lot to know things because resources are limited there.” 莉莉·爱德华兹说。
堪萨斯城校区的学生卡洛斯·奥利瓦斯（Carlos Olivas）在1月份完成了同样的轮换。 虽然毕晓普、爱德华兹和奥利瓦斯在诊所担任同样的角色，与医生、医学生和医师助理学生合作，同时分发药物和为患者提供咨询，但奥利瓦斯说，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。
每周，医生和学生们会用一辆面包车装载基本药物，从他们的家庭诊所出发，花45分钟到3个小时的时间前往偏远地区和村庄，在那里他们每天要看40到50名病人。 在一次长途旅行中，爱德华兹和她的团队来到了一个三年没有医疗服务的村庄。
爱德华兹在一栋没有电和自来水的建筑里工作，他是团队中唯一的药剂师，负责配药和为病人提供咨询。 一天还没结束，这个团队的抗生素就用完了，病人也用完了。 爱德华兹被迫进入解决问题的模式。
“Doctors are coming to me saying, ‘I want this antibiotic for an ear infection,’ and I’m telling them, ‘I’m sorry, what’s your next choice? I have this,’” said Edwards, who looked back on the experience as both stressful and extremely rewarding. “It was incredibly eye opening. It definitely pushed me further than I thought was possible.”
解决问题成为学生药剂师日常工作的一部分，因为他们经常处理有限的供应，回答有关可用药物的问题并确定适当的剂量。
"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, the knowledge that we have,” Bishop said. “It was fun to work with them because they didn’t realize what we learn. We don’t diagnose patients, 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.
“The discussions were very open,” he said. “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.”
并不是所有的时间都花在埃尔德里奇维尔诊所或流动诊所。 这三个人还发现自己在另一个公共卫生服务角色中享受时间，参观当地学校，参加公共卫生博览会，做从血压检查到糖尿病筛查的一切事情。
奥利瓦斯向一群学生讲述了良好营养和锻炼的必要性和好处。 在与一个有30到40名三四年级学生的教室互动时，所有的学生都微笑着和他一起大笑，学生们一度开始告诉他他们对碳水化合物和胆固醇的了解。
“I was like, you’re in third or fourth grade and you’re talking to me about that,” Olivas said. “It was really cool.”