follow me to ohio

this has been the longest month since i’ve started pharmacy school. i decided to join a p&t competition (basically using evidence base medicine and the manufacturer’s dossier to argue my reasons as to why a certain medication should or should not be added to a clinic’s formulary). i was assigned to group of 4 (2 p3s, 1 p2, and 1 p1). materials were passed out during december and i should’ve started over break. of course, i was with family and friends and i pretty much ignored the project :P

when i came back to cbus, my team and i finally started the written portion (20-page monograph + 10 pages of answering other questions). the other p3, p2, and i definitely wanted to quit 2 weeks before the first part of the project was due. of course, we played competition chicken - mostly saying “i’ll quit if you wanna quit”. but our gung ho p1 cheered us on and somehow convinced us to stay in the running. with less than 1 week to go, we scrambled to finish our material…i read several books about pharmacoeconomic models to understand my portion of the project >_< let’s just say, i don’t think i’ll ever go into this aspect of pharmacy. we panicked for a week, stressed out, and went a little nutty. by saturday night of the due date, we submitted part 1 with 10 mins to go and a short freak out session that was accompanied by busta rhymes’ pass the courvoisier. we went out and celebrated that night, to which i only remember a lot of drinking, dancing, and finally starting the once upon a time series (thanks diana!). 

a week later, we typed, semi-rehearsed (a couple times actually) and finally submitted our presentation slides at 11:58pm (it was due at 11:59p). again, we went out, this time we were all present. the next day, we went snowboarding for ~6hrs - we well deserved break from school, projects, and work! at this point, i’m thinking i’m spending way too much time with my group, granted one of them is my best friend :P

finally, during this past week, we met up a couple of times to rehearse our presentation and frantically trying to cut down our time to meet the 30min limit. our p1 and p2 had exams all week and the p3s with a fat exam the following week, so by friday, we were all exhausted, but ready to kick some ass. we met up before the presentation for a quick rehearsal and pep talk. when we gave our presentation to 4 judges (who were specialists in what we were presenting), the feedback and critiques made our jaws drop with excitement. let’s just say, we felt pretty rewarded for the time and effort we put into this project. 

although we did not win the competition, we did get third place and we made pretty sweet t-shirts. now that it’s done and over, i have to say it was a pretty great experience. but it would not have been as awesome if not for my amazing team. we worked hard, played hard, joked hard, and drank hard :P i have never had this much fun stressing over a project. i have also never had this many high fives in a month. it’s a bond that i hope never fades. thank you to the best team ever. 

ps we’re pretty tight.