Pre-registration Tips !!!!!!!!

[farm-a-sea]

Hi people,

I am pharmacy student starting my pre-registration year in a couple of months. I was wondering if people who are in their pre-registration at the moment or passed their pre-registration could give me some tips on how to pass it and get the most from it.

Thanks

[Liberty]

I'm currently a pre-reg and my biggest tip is: DON'T p*** off your pre-reg tutor. He/she can make or break you.

[SolomonQ]

ok a few tips

*as above about relationship with tutor, but dont kiss ass too much, some might get carried away with the respect you show them, refrain from making tea etc...

*dont do placement at a busy store as you probably wont have energy to do any reading/research after work and during work you wont get a chance to study anything or "shadow" the pharmacist when s/he's giving advice.

*Uni courses dont really teach about OTC brands etc... so familiarise with em as soon as can be,

* work out the dispensary layout, i.e. where are the eye drops/test strips/creams etc kept

will edit later, work calls

[N.T]

Buy two books, both available from Pharmaceutical Press (and usually second hand from amazon wuite cheap):
1. The yellow one about calculations
2. The purple one about how to pass pre-reg.

Do your calculations regularly.

Clinical knowledge: Read/make notes/revise a BNF chapter every fortnight.

OTC meds: familiarise yourself with the actives in each brand. Then marvel at how much money people waste on branded versions when they could save themselves ££££ each time on generics.

OTC knowledge: familiarise yourself with OTC Guidance documents. Rpsgb.org: Download Society publications

Don't piss off your tutor.

Don't let any techs take the piss.

Don't put up with rude members of the public.

Don't work more than your contracted hours.

The MEP: read it. It's a chore.

Exam questions: there's sample questions on the RPSGB website. Ask around - some other people will have more samples.

[Steve G]

Originally Posted by SolomonQ

ok a few tips


*dont do placement at a busy store as you probably wont have energy to do any reading/research after work and during work you wont get a chance to study anything or "shadow" the pharmacist when s/he's giving advice.

not entirely sure I agree with that. I did my pre-reg in 2005/6 at a branch that was doing around 15k items (I'm back there now permanently and we're up to 21k now). Working in a busy branch has two advantages - you get to see people with obscure conditions (i.e. we have at least 3 cystic fibrosis patients who are on Pulmozyme and one patient with PKU), and you also get used to working in a busy environment.

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by N.T

Don't let any techs take the piss.

At work we are always taking the piss out of each other.
If you didn't join in you'd have an unhappy year.
My techs are often better qualified than I am.

Jeff

[N.T]

Originally Posted by Jeff

At work we are always taking the piss out of each other.
Jeff

I shoudl clarify. There's

Originally Posted by Jeff

taking the piss out of each other.

and there's ''taking the piss by making you do shitty jobs excessively.''

It was the second method of urine extraction I was referring to.

[gamhulcol]

The most important thing to learn when working is when to refer, and restrictions on sales of otc medicines e.g. Chloramphenical eye drops can't be sold for children under 2 years. These questions will definetely come up in the exam and should be easy if you paid attention when you experienced the situation yourself.

While working you'll also naturally pick up the law stuff, when things don't seem right ask your tutor what the legal situation is in the situation. However, you still need to read the MEP.

Most important things to learn on your own is the BNF. clinical knowledge of important interactions, important sideeffects, signs and symptoms of disease management etc. This topic is probably the biggest part to learn so start on this early.

[cezlaa]

Or, if you're a hospital pre-reg then you'll find you'll pick up a lot of the clinical stuff at work (although you still have do you quite a bit yourself!), and have to read lots of books about OTC sales, when to refer, restrictions and all the law stuff (because we have no OTC sales and ignore most of the laws in hospital )

[Sir_Dispensalot]

Originally Posted by SolomonQ

ok a few tips

dont do placement at a busy store as you probably wont have energy to do any reading/research after work and during work you wont get a chance to study
anything or "shadow" the pharmacist when s/he's giving advice.

i did my pre-reg at a very busy health centre 800 items a day on a quiet day and i can honestly say that i learned loads simply from the volume of scripts passing by me every single day. for the first 6 weeks i was crap at everything but then stuff started to click - after a bit there isn't much that you don't see and its a real help to have more practical experience.
If you work for a chain, sometimes you can spend the odd day working at other branches to get a feel for different working environments and get different outlooks on pharmacy from different pharmacists (it helps to grill any locums too!)