Pharmacy Week 2006

Dear Diary,

Back from a pretty amazing experience at the Pharmacy Week 2006 in the atrium outside the Carrefour in Suntec City. I remember my manager asking if any full-time pharmacists wanted to volunteer for the Pharmacy Week events. Many of them volunteered. I did not. However, as always, I just found my name included in that list! Hmmm… the same scenario happened to for a restricted access pass application. I did not apply for it but she included it for me nonetheless. She said I needed a rest from all the mundane store work and the stressful roster-coordination. She didn’t know that people were still calling me regarding the roster for the last 2 days although I was at the Pharmacy Week! Then again, I am kinda glad she included me in the Pharmacy Week 2006 after all. =) It was a nice experience albeit tiring.

Yesterday morning, I went to St Andrew’s Cathedral early in the morning to pray. There were preparations in the church done for an upcoming prefect investiture for St Andrew’s School that afternoon. Then I proceeded to the atrium to help to set up my company’s booth. It was a rather elaborate set-up compared to the rest of the other booths which included rival retail pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, health supplement companies and even government bodies like Health Promotion Board (HPB). The cute Wyeth rep was around and she called out to me, haha… Then again, I think she thought I thought I could be bought over by some of her Robitussin sweets to sell Caltrate. Tsk tsk… haha… Unfortunately for her, my company is promoting a rival Calcium supplement brand. After the backbreaking set-up which included some fixing up of shelves and transferring of goods, I helped out a little in survey soliciting while the other 2 pharmacists manned the medication review desks. After ½ hour of survey soliciting, I left to meet a former classmate in his pharmacy which is situated in a shopping mall nearby. Bought lunch and ate it in his pharmacy while we chatted. It was a nice chat.

After the lunch, I rushed off to give two lectures to the pharmacy assistants at HQ. 7 out of the 10 pharmacy assistants were former pharmacists in The Philippines. After 3 hours’ worth of lectures, I gave them two open-book tests. Somehow, I had that impression that they were very attentive in my class. In fact, one of them came up and shook my hands, saying, “It was an awesome lecture!” The rest were clearly impressed too. =) Ok, it was an ego-trip, haha… However, praises usually motivate and brighten up one’s mood! Can anyone deny that? ;-P After that, I took a walk in City Hall and eventually bought 2 cards from Raffles City. Will drop a nice farewell card to a locum pharmacist who will be stopping work and furthering her studies next year. Hope I can get back to the tradition of writing cards and letters which I have not done for a long long time. The evening Korean drama “Princess Hours” starring Yoon Eun-Hye (Cai Jing) is surprisingly captivating! Think I am mesmerised by the lead actress! Where am I ever going to find such a cute girl as my wife? Hahahaha… just joking!

Today, I went to St Andrew’s Cathedral again in the morning. It is always good to sit in the Cathedral as the organist plays. There is always that calming effect and it seems like a place of solace in a busy city area like City Hall. Then I proceeded to open my booth at the atrium. Even before the official start time, people were already asking me if I could start health screening. To be frank, I did not know what was expected of me. I was pushed a set of medication review forms, a blood-pressure monitor and a Karada Body-fat scan. The queue began to form as I examined each patient. Basically, I just acted like a general practitioner… interpreting results, giving advice and writing “prescriptions”. The queue was practically never-ending. In fact, I did not have my lunch till 4pm! During my lunch break, I took some moment to try to talk to a pre-registration pharmacist at a rival pharmacy booth. She looks good and I hate to admit… but like all guys, I just wanted to find some reason to chat up with her a little, haha… Then there was another junior whom I led during Orientation Week. She came up to say “Hi” and asked if I recognised her, haha… She apparently is working part-time with a pharmaceutical company. She even asked me to measure her blood pressure. Then her Indian manager, a really nice guy, also came over and I did a body-fat analysis for him. He was really appreciative of the advice I gave to him. Anyway, I heard that many of the patients came to our booth because of recommendations by word of mouth! Cool! Maybe our company was also the only booth with pharmacists in white coats. Many people thought we were general practitioners. Or maybe we have a couple of pharmacy assistants who dressed up like nurses, hahaha… In fact, a number of pharmacy students and a pre-registration pharmacist asked about our company, clearly impressed and awed by our dazzling “professionalism”. Since we far exceeded our medication review targets and sales target (we actually generated far more than 2 times that of the sales achieved by the other 2 pharmacists yesterday, keke… =P), I gave the signal to pack up a little earlier. It was home sweet home after that!

Anyway, just want to share with you this hilarious clip:

NTU Lecturer Appraisal

You must watch it indeed! That’s all for tonight! Goodnight.

God Bless,

Andrew