Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Pharmacy is ready to go!

Pharmacy is beyond excited- I actually could not sleep until 3 AM last night going over details in my head.  We have a wonderful team that is very prepared:  3 students, Emily, Sarah and Grace as well as Astrid, a PGY1 resident.  And....Nick will join the second half of the team as a preceptor!  Presentations are well underway, I am working on a Medication Safety presentation- Tanzania actually has a and FDA equivalent aptly named the TFDA. 
My hope for students is that we have an opportunity to understand the supply chain challenges.  Given that Ilula is a government hospital, the majority of medications are sourced out of the Medical Stores Dept in Iringa- I hope we can visit.  A second source is a private pharmacy and at last visit - they employ two pharmacists which is quite wonderful for the local folks; only one in ten pharmacies has a pharmacist!  My second hope is that everyone has an opportunity to see how medications are distributed in the villages in particular HIV medications; TZ has recently had a robust process for doing so and we may help with some of the documents. 
I look forward to introducing everyone to Frank and Rita.  Frank Sanga is the pharmacy professional on the campus and is very skillful at inventory management.  Rita is a leader in the new Nursing School which will be dedicated during the students stay.  Rita and Frank have 3 darling children. 
Please remember to download the 2013 TZ Treatment Guidelines to either a smartphone or tablet- and familiarize yourself with the medications at the end of the guideline.  The government of TZ has a listing of medications that are to be supplied depending on the size of the hospital.  For example, Ilula has two narcotics at last visit (morphine and pethidine) as no chemotherapy.  The medications for tropical disease management are robust:  Ampiclox and Alu will undoubtedly be new to everyone! 
Looking forward to both sharing past learnings, and learning new things with everyone as we work shoulder to shoulder with our colleagues in TZ!  Sleep well the next few days!  Jill