A Good Teacher

    I came to work Monday feeling tired and discouraged. We had survived my boss's vacation last week thanks to some extra help given to us by the scheduler. Still, I was tired and drained. Because of the amount of work created by the new system conversion I was only taking weekends off. This means that my boss and I are working 14 days on and two days off. We stay up to ten hours a day.
  I had taken two interns this summer. I was hoping to have an intern from North Dakota, but my site was not needed this year. I had made out my intern schedule before I  knew our conversion date. By the time out date was set, it was too late to cancel the slots from my schedule.
  As a result I wasn't able to be the type of hands on truly involved preceptor I was used to being. Many times my intern spent several hours researching assignments while I struggled to keep up with the rush of customers in the pharmacy. My last intern wasn't able to meet all the school assigned requirements. Fortunately , the course director (who knows me) said he would arrange for some remedial help  for her. I felt I had failed as a preceptor, which made me feel even more discouraged.
  The day before I got a call from Deb, a pharmacist at another location. Her store was going to be converting to the new system soon. She wanted to come to my store to shadow me and maybe get a little more hands on experience. I am always happy to help another pharmacist especially with the new system. I just wasn't sure how good a teacher I could be.
  I was happy to see Deb when she came in. I have always liked her and we've encouraged each other through tough times. I had two goals in mind for the morning. The first was to show her how to work the system and a few things that would make things easier down the road. The second one was to give her some confidence. No one was happy about this conversion. No one likes our new software. However, this is what the folks at corporate had chosen and we would have to deal with it. A negative attitude is not helpful. I wasn't going to lie to her. The first few weeks were going to be tough. I hoped that the good relationship that she and her staff had with their customers might be helpful. I had spoken to a new pharmacist last week who had worked with this software at another chain. She had given me some suggestions for how to better manage our workflow. I was going to share what I learned with Deb.
  I walked her though filling a prescription from start to finish. It felt good. I felt like I was able to explain how to do things and to give her tips on other things to do that would make life easier in the long run. We worked together  for a couple of hours. She seemed to be getting a hang of running the software. She told me that I seemed very competent on our system. She also said that she had heard that I was a very good teacher. I asked her who had told her that. She mentioned the name of an intern that had worked with me last year. I was surprised. I remembered the intern. I spent a lot of time teaching her and believed very strongly that she would make an outstanding pharmacist someday.
  Deb had planned to stay longer, but left early so she could get some stock from her store to bring to me. (We are having trouble getting our orders to come in.) She told me that she planned to come back and work with me another day. I must have done a good job if she was willing to come back.
  Later on I spoke with her staff pharmacist. He told me that Deb had come into work feeling enthusiastic. This was going to be hard, but not impossible. That was what I was hoping to do. I wanted to give her some tools and some hope.
  Maybe I am a good teacher after all.......