Pediatric Panel Minutes
Speakers:
Ryan Seagren, PharmD at the American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison
rseagren@uwhealth.org
Jess Poehls, PharmD at the American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison
jpoehls2@uwhealth.org
Residency
Increasingly more common to do 1-2 years of residency if you’re planning to do hospital pharmacy
First year is more general rotations, some might be in your interest area
Second year is tailored to your interests (for example, peds!)
Jess did rotations in Peds transplant, Peds hematology and oncology, and other very specific rotations dealing with pediatrics
Pediatrics
Taking care of kids can be challenging because dosing is very different for kids than adults
Most people think kids would need a smaller dose than what’s recommended for adults, but this isn’t always the case!
Drugs also metabolize and interact differently in kids bodies than in adults so that has to be taken into consideration
You have to be creative
Kids might not always like taking their medicine if it tastes bad or a newborn who’s unable to swallow a tablet
In this case, you have to come up with different formulations of drugs or think of other ways
There’s not always great research on drugs in children which can make treatment decisions more difficult.
To combat this, you again have to get creative and extrapolate data from studies on adults and decide why and in what cases it is appropriate to apply data from adults to children
Pharmacy Practice Varies by State
East Coast vs Midwest
Ryan explained how his experience working out east didn’t provide him with as much authority
In the midwest, there is often more integrated hospitals where a pharmacist can practice at the top of his/her license. They have more responsibility to catch errors in patient care.
Specialist Hospital vs Integrated Model
UW-Health is an example of an integrated model where providers with all kinds of specialty backgrounds collaborate to provide care for a patient. The minute a patient comes into the hospital, the pharmacist begins their role checking medication histories, allergies, vaccines, etc.
In other parts of the nation, specialist models are more common. In these types of hospitals the primary physician has the most influence on the treatment for a patient. Whatever course of treatment they choose for a patient is what they will likely get.
Interprofessional Communication
When talking with other members of the health-care team, they have found it’s easier to lightly nudge the other people in the right direction and using literature sources to back-up your position
Never flat out say the other person is wrong, this could create unwanted tension
Prepare resources to defend your decision
It also helps to build relationships with your coworkers so there is more common ground to work with when it comes to making tough decisions