4/11/11-4/13/11

I got to try a few new things this week. Erica taught me how to take patient medication histories. It was fun because she would pretend to be a ridiculous patient with crazy symptoms. I had to focus on asking open-ended questions in order to get the "patient" to talk more. Sometimes it's hard to really get a full history because patients don't always know what is relevant to their health. One time, Erica was interviewing someone and she asked them if they took illicit drugs. They said no, but when she asked if he smoked pot, he answered yes. Turns out he didn't know what illicit meant. The lesson is to ask simple, understandable questions. Wednesday I inputted prescriptions all day. There's always something new to learn when I do that. There's always different problems with insurance and I have to make all sorts of phone calls to nurses and insurance companies. I hate using the phone. Half the time I end up handing it to one of the other technicians because I have no clue whats going on. But I'm getting a little better at it.