I can’t believe that the end of the fall semester is almost
here. It seems like it was only yesterday when I moved down here to New Orleans
to start this Pharmacology program. This month we had 2 block exams which covered
cardiovascular, renal, pulmonary, and molecular biology. The CV/Renal block in
particular was stressful as it was the longest block and it accounted for the
most percentage of points for the medical pharmacology course. For the CV/Renal
block it wasn’t enough to just recognize the drugs, their mechanism of action,
or their side effects; no, this block and the exam tested our critical thinking
and application of everything we covered in class. Not only were there so many
drugs to know, but a lot of the drugs could be used in multiple different types
of treatments. For example, beta-blockers can be used in the treatment of
myocardial infarction, heart failure, hypertension, and many others. So it was
imperative that we understood which drug would be the most appropriate to use
depending on the clinical indications. Thankfully, our professors did an
excellent job in making the topics easy to follow and understand.
With November comes Thanksgiving, and I am thankful to the
Pharmacology department in giving us a week off for Thanksgiving. It was
greatly appreciated and I took advantage of it to just unwind so I could come
back after the break focus for the last couple of weeks of the semester. For
community service, I volunteered once again at the Habitat for Humanity
ReStore. It was nice to come back and see some of the staff that I worked with
last month. Since this was my second time volunteering at the ReStore I was
more comfortable in dealing with customers’ needs and understanding the general
layout of the store and where things needed to be.
This will be my last blog post of the year so I hope all of
you have a happy holiday season and I will talk to you again next year!
November hours: 4
Cumulative hours: 25
