Week in the life of a 4th year Pharmacy student

Fourth year Pharmacy student, Nita Shabrina may only be a few months in to her final year as an undergraduate at the University of Manchester, but the end is already in sight. With exams, placements, lectures and presentations all playing a part in her jam packed week, it’s testament to Nita that she find time to participate in non-pharmacy related activities as well. Discover what she does to balance out her academic responsibilities and learn more about what a typical week for a final year Pharmacy student looks like below…

Monday

It’s week seven this week, meaning that last week was reading week.  I didn’t have to go to uni at all, so it was nice for me to relax without having to wake up to the sound of my alarm at 7.30am every morning. Unfortunately, I don’t get that luxury today. I still find it hard getting up in the morning even though I enjoy uni once I’m there.

Today, I start at 10am. So I followed my usual routine and walked to uni at 9.30am. I had a two-hour lecture on safe prescribing. Even though I won’t be able to prescribe as soon as I qualify, it’s still important to know about this because it affects my patients’ safety. We used our BNF, AKA the pharmacy bible, to help us with this session. It has a lot of information about medicines available in the UK.

I had a quick lunch before making my way to my placement at Salford Royal Hospital. I spent my time on the ward asking patients about their medical history to practice my consultation skills for my exam in January. I used to feel a bit nervous speaking to patients, but I’ve had a lot of practice now and I really enjoy it.

Tuesday

My day starts at 10 today for a mock exam on global health. Straight after, I have a group meeting for our project on pneumonia. We’ll have to present it to other students and lecturers in week 9.  Afterwards, I did some work in the PC cluster for a few hours before treating myself to some Japanese food from Oishi-Q. It was then time for me to get back and change into my sports gear. I’ve been going to badminton sessions that are arranged by the university every Tuesday as it’s a nice way to de-stress from 4^th year. The session is free with all equipment provided. Why buy a gym membership?

Wednesday

I had the morning off today, which is a rare privilege.  So I revised for tomorrow’s clinical case mock, which will be relevant to anticoagulant medicines like warfarin. After, I put my smart clothes on and made my way to uni for 1:40pm as I’m interviewing pharmacy applicants. It’s my first shift and I’ve been excited about this for weeks. It was very different being on the other end of the interview desk. I then rushed home to get ready for a birthday party at Sapporo Teppanyaki. It’s a Japanese restaurant where the chef cooks your food in front of you and even throws food in your mouth. I came home with a happy belly.

Thursday

I booked a badminton court with my friend for 8am at Sugden Sports Centre. At 11-1, I had a class on cardiology. Every week, we have to prepare a presentation before the class and one group would get randomly picked to present by the wheel of fortune. Luckily, it wasn’t our group. We then had lunch before our patient care plan mock. I looked at the patient’s medical history and blood results to see if their medicine is still clinically appropriate for the patient. This was challenging, but exciting, reminding me of why I chose pharmacy.

Friday

I walked to the Alan Gilbert Learning Commons (Ali G) for my 4^th year project group meeting. Our group is planning events to raise awareness on alcohol consumption. Afterwards, I headed to another meeting with my pneumonia group and our supervisor. We showed him our presentation and he gave us feedback to work on, reminding us to include more statistics and research to take our presentation to a master’s level. I then made my way to the Fallowfield library with my alcohol awareness group to see what resources they had to help with our event. They had interactive items like beer goggles, which is really good as we want to make our event intriguing to draw people in. I ended the day with a trip to the Christmas markets, which was a nice introduction to the weekend.

Saturday

I woke up and called my family, so we can update each other on our week. I enjoy living out but I miss home once in a while. I did some work for my pneumonia presentation, then gave myself some time off by watching Big Bang Theory until it was time to get ready for another birthday party. We went to Try Thai and I would recommend everyone to try it.

Sunday

It’s been a while since I worked on my literature review for alcohol awareness. So I opened the document and spent the day researching the taxation of alcohol and its impact. I finished the weekend with a nice Sunday dinner.