Hospital Training Diary : Manufacturing

Hello all.

For my second post, i'll share what i did during my practical (which i promised during my previous to share it later). Basically, it have been 5 weeks from my first day i started my training. Fyi, i'm having my practical in hospital somewhere in Perak as i registered as a pharmacy student at UITM Pulau Pinang Bertam Campus. For the first week, we only had our orientation week where we exchange place every day in that week;

Monday - Manufacturing/Galanicle

Tuesday - In Patient Department (IPD)

Wednesday - Out Patient Department (OPD)

Thursday - Therapeutic Drug Monitoring Unit (TDM)

Friday - Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN)

We only start with our own schedule during the second week. For me, i started with manufacturing/galanicle with my other 3 friends. Our posting duration in galanicle is 4 weeks.  In galanicle, it is divided into 2 part which are lotion and cream. Therefore, it'll be 2 weeks in cream part while another 2 weeks will be in lotion part. I started with lotion part, so it's quite tiring since we need to prepare a lot of medications and most of it need to be sterile as they were use internally. 

Before i proceed with my list of medications that i've prepared in 2 weeks, let me share about our daily morning routines in galanicle. After we punched our attendance card (our working hours ; 8am - 5pm), we'll keep our bags and other stuffs in the drawer provided. Then, we'll head up to the gathering area in front of the IPD (because galanicle itself is located inside the IPD). Around 5 minutes passed 8am, we will head to the wards block to collect every ward's medication basket. This hospital have 4 floor of wards (G, 1,2,3,4) and every floor have 4 wards respectively except for the 4th floor which only have 2 wards. Meanwhile in the 1st floor there were the ICU, NICU (for paediatrics) and OT (Operation Theater - which divided into GOT, MOT & LROT[Labour Room OT]). After we've done with the basket collection, we'll head back to IPD and start the ward/floor stocks indent. We'll help in top up the medications needed based on what have been ordered/indent by the ward in the record book. Here, we applied the concept of exchange basis (we only supply the quantity of the meds based on the quantity empty container returned to us). Once we finished top up all the medications required, the pharmacist in charge will recheck and called out our name (they'll know since we need to fill out our name in the record book as the supplier) if there's any mistake we've made. - this is the best part as you'll learn a lot of new things upon called 😆 With that, our daily morning routines end...

LOTION

Here, we'll continue by washing the returned empty glass bottle and top up with their respective solution such as;

 - povidone 10%

 - surgical spirirt

 - hydrogen peroxide 20 vol

 - chlorhexidine 1:200 in alcohol 

 - chlorhexidine 1:50 

 - ether

 - teepol

 - acetic acid 2% or 5%

These solutions are used externally and mostly used as disinfectant or for wound healing. 

Quantity of bottle that have been top up with new solution will be recorded in a book together with their expired date sticker. The book will then be checked by the pharmacist in charge. Done with that, we'll go for a rest (eat at the cafe) and continue with other preparation such as;

We prepacked the 1kg of sodium bicarbonate into 20g sachets. (there were also for 1g, 2g, 10g)

Ferrous fumarate is brown in colour. We need to prepare it using the mortar & pestle also with the jug & spatula.
Storage : kept in the refrigerator

Sodium citrate also need to be stored in the refrigerator.

Paeds simple lintus usually we prepared it in bulk in  a container (about 40L) as we also need to prepare & indent it to KK (Klinik Kesihatan) according to their order/indent, also the extra will be kept as the hospital stocks as it going to be packed into 60 ml plastic bottle.

This one is for external use since the label is printed in red.

Actually, there are a lot more that we've prepared but i forgot to take the label or i might misplaced it 😅

CREAM

Different for cream, we'll continue prepare any cream needed or prepack any ointment or cream into smaller container. Besides, we also have IV Drip stocks indent which will be done at the integrated store on every Monday & Thursday only. It is quite similar to the ward stocks where we've done in the morning as we will indent according to what have been ordered in the book by every ward respectively. Usually we'll do it after we've done with our lunch, at about 3pm.

Aqueous cream have been the most important preparation since it'll also be used as base in other preparations.

We usually prepack LMS (Methyl Salicylate 25% Ointment) as the hospital bought the manufactured one in bulk container.

We got excited when preparing this because the light brown colour itself and also one of the ingredient is caramel.

This one also light brown in colour & it looked much like "Teh Tarik". After being packed in the plastic bottle, the solution will be divided into 3 layers by themselves.

This one also one of the interesting preparation and also the one that test your patience level as it took a long time to prepare and hard to pack in the glass bottle 😑

It took all day long for the magnesium to melt.

This is how it look like after being packed! 😄

It's such a great experience to work in galanicle, i've learned a lot though. After this, my posting will be at the TPN for 3 weeks. Let's see what will i learn & do there 😎

With that, i'll end today's entry here. 

Thanks for reading, best regards from me to you 💓