to be hospital pharmacist 11

When you arrive at the hospital

you will no doubt meet your tutor at some point during the induction. It is important to make a good impression on the tutor as early as possible. For some of you, you may find that you do

not actually meet your tutor until a few weeks into the year because they are

on holiday or have other commitments.

 Remember that the pre-reg year starts in July or August, which is the time of summer holidays so most pharmacy departments are short staffed and very busy. You should meet

somebody who is going to look after you and cover for your tutor, although

this is unfortunately not always the case.

If your induction goes to plan, you meet the people who will be managing

your pre-reg year and find out what the year will involve in terms of

your rotations and on which hospital sites you will be working. You meet

your pre-reg manager and, hopefully, your pre-reg tutor. This may be a bit

scary at first, particularly if your tutor is the chief pharmacist of a very large

hospital but you don’t need to be scared because they are all human! It may be

the case that your tutor is senior and many staff in the department either do

not like, or are apprehensive of, him or her.

This may be because your tutor isa senior manager and has to make decisions that are not popular. Remember that the face that the tutor shows to you may be very different from what he

or she shows to the rest of the department – he or she is probably a nice person

underneath the persona.

It is important to realise that your tutor is there to support you throughout

the year and assess you against performance standards, but not do any of

the work for you. Tutors do not have time to do this, and it is your pre-reg year

after all. Some of you may expect them to be the fount of all knowledge and to

be able to answer all your questions; you may therefore be disappointed to

find that most tutors generally answer your questions with more questions

although they may provide you with some direction as to where to find the

answers.

This could well be frustrating for some of you who expect answers

to your questions; your tutors are not university lecturers. You may also find

it frustrating when your tutor presents you with an ambiguous problem and

asks you to find an answer or make a decision; you then find that there is

more than one correct answer and that, although your answer is correct

according to the literature or the books, it is not what your tutor would

do. You should be able to discuss this with your tutor to see why he or she

makes a particular decision.

You need to be aware of your own deadlines and when your rotations

occur, and also what deadlines are set by the RPSGB for any formal documentation.

You need to inform your tutor of these deadlines, if they are not

already aware of them, so that you can work towards them. Some experienced

tutors will guide you on this but do not expect guidance from all tutors.