Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience
Nuclear Pharmacy (9/21/2012)
My most recent new experience has been shadowing at a nuclear
pharmacy. It was wildly different than I expected it to be. For starters, the
building had no signs advertising the business name. As soon as I walked in I
heard a background beeping noise, a lab area, and an office area. I began with
getting an introductory overview to nuclear pharmacy from the pharmacist followed
by watching the pharmacist work in the lab. There are few practicing nuclear
pharmacists in the United States and typically a nuclear pharmacy is not
associated with a hospital but rather serves an area of many hospitals. This is because the nuclear pharmacy
equipment is very expensive and it saves the hospital money to contract out the
medications they need instead of doing it at the hospital. Also a nuclear pharmacy tends to serve an
area fairly close to them because with further distances, more of a drug has to
be dispensed to take into account the half-life of the medication. For further distances, it would not be cost
effective to send medications. Also, a
nuclear pharmacist works with much fewer drugs than one would see at a hospital
or community pharmacy. The coolest part
of the experience was to hear the Giger counter beep really fast when the
radioactive component of the medication was taken out of the thick shielding container. Overall I became comfortable with the idea of
nuclear pharmacy. I understood that the
business name was not advertised because the general population is not
knowledgeable about nuclear pharmacy and it would make people unnecessarily worried. In just a few hours I learned so much about
nuclear pharmacy and I left feeling that it was an absolutely amazing
experience!
