Today was quite different from my first day working at Waverly Hematology Oncology. Instead of starting my day with patients, I was able to shadow the pharmacy technician, Emily. It was extremely interesting to watch Emily because her job was to mix individualized medicinal solutions for different patients depending on how severe the patients’ diseases were. Through her mixing process, she walked me through step by step the mathematics that went behind calculating how much of each substance was used. It was also helpful to hear about her pharmacy technician school process (how long it was and what kinds of things she learned.
Working with Emily on the medicinal solutions didn’t take all day; in fact, during the afternoon, I worked with Dr. Graham (the head of the clinic) as he met with the rest of his patients. I was introduced to GR who was in her late 30’s. It was unfortunate that she had breast cancer as she was very young. I sat in on Dr. Graham explaining to her the pros and cons of getting a lumpectomy versus a mastectomy. I could tell that GR was getting rather emotional (as expected) while Dr. Graham was talking, but she felt much better knowing that she was working with an expert like him. He made a list for her to take home which explained that through a lumpectomy, GR would be able to keep her “God-given anatomy.” However, the downside to that process would result in a 1 in 7 chance of the cancer reoccurring. In the case of the other process, the mastectomy, she would lose this “God-given anatomy” but the risk of her cancer reoccurring would be 1 in 40. While most come to the conclusion that you would want to pick the path that yields the best security, Dr. Graham explained to me that this is a patient’s life we are talking about and we can’t make assumptions as to what their best interest is.
Overall, my second day at Waverly Oncology was just as interesting as my first. I was able to experience a new outlook of medicine which I now have more interest in (in terms of professions) and I was able to continue my patient-interactions which I enjoy.
