to be hospital pharmacist 13

WHAT CAN GO WRONG?

 
There are many things that can go wrong with your tutor; some of them may
be of your making and others may be outside your control but frustrating
nevertheless.

It is absolutely critical that you start your year on a positive note, with
the expectation that the pre-reg year is your year and that you are responsible
for making sure that you cover everything that you need to cover.
From our experience, some things that can go wrong with your tutor,
apart from the lack of experience and interest, include the following:

•  Tutor too busy, e.g. may work part time
•  Tutor leaves and no one available to cover
•  Tutor goes on long-term leave, e.g. maternity leave, and no one to cover
•  Tutor works on a different hospital site to you and is difficult to get hold of
•  Tutor is unfriendly and unsupportive
•  Tutor has too high expectations of you
•  Work is too busy and you are not allowed to leave your rotation to see your tutor.

Some of the problems that are your fault include:

 

•  You are consistently late and unprepared for your meetings
•  You do not write sufficient quality records of evidence
•  You do not show any development over a period of time
•  You do not learn from your experiences
•  You do not have an insight into your own weaknesses
•  You do not recognise your own limitations
•  You do not respond well to criticism.

In our experience some or all of the above have happened and are
sometimes difficult to manage. Many of these problems can be resolved by
good communication with your tutors at the start of the year, but occasionally
it is difficult to do this, especially if your tutor is a senior pharmacist. Our
advice is that, if there are any problems with your tutor, take these up with
your pre-reg manager who is ultimately accountable for pre-reg training in
the hospital. 

You will find that the pre-reg manager will generally be interested
to hear your views and may even be able to change your tutor midway
through the year, if you both feel that the relationship is not working. If your
pre-reg tutor is also the pre-reg manager, you may want to go to his or her
manager, but take a look at yourself first in case any of the problems are of
your own making and try to resolve these first.

If your tutor is your manager and also the chief pharmacist, you have a
problem! In these cases, it is worth noting that help and support are available
from outside the hospital. Every hospital will be part of a region and you will
have regional study days, so you may want to discuss any issues with the
regional team who are neutral to the hospital and will try to support you by
listening to you and providing you with advice in a confidential manner.

Other than that, the pre-reg team at the RPSGB are very experienced at
handling pre-reg problems; although contacting the professional body can
be daunting, it is still an option.