Strange Ending

Friday, August 29, 2008 marked the end of my first summer internship as a student pharmacist. I came into the experience about ten weeks ago with a lot of vigor, curiosity and positivity. Although the latter two elements remained mostly intact, I must say I have lost steam. Towards the last two weeks, I could not wait to get back to UCSF to recharge my energy and to load myself with more knowledge so I can become more effective in empowering patients to take charge of their health care.

I can't exactly pin point one cause for my loss of energy in the job. It must have been a culmination of many things: the long chaotic days with constant change in pharmacists due to my sister's absence; the feeling of not having the time to slow down and process the mass of information around me; not being able to leave the pharmacy for a short while due to my managerial duties; etc.

Overall, I would say that I had a positive experience and learned a lot from my ten weeks of work. The best part of my job were getting free lattes everyday (I make my own most of the time using the huge latte machine that we have for the adjacent coffee shop that my mom runs) and having yummy home-cooked food when my mom was not on vacation. I also enjoyed counseling patients who were grateful that I spent the time to explain their medications in a language that they could understand. Most of my patient interactions were very positive.

Strange things happened, though, as it did in the last day. While I was occupied with a task away from the front counter, I heard an elderly Chinese patient screamming "Ms. Ung!" several times very loudly. I knew she was trying to get my sister's attention because she heard my sister's voice. I recall hearing a co-worker telling her in Mandarin that Ms. Ung was very busy and he would relay any message that she had. After a while, she walked away. A few minutes later, when I answered the phone, I heard the same voice asking: "Ms. Ung?" I told her I was "Little Ms. Ung" and she said many things that I did not understand. The only thing that I could make out was that she was outside by the door. She hung up when I handed the phone to my coworker, who was better in Mandarin. About five minutes after the mysterious phone call, I walked to the front counter and still saw her standing by the door. That's when I decided to interrupt my extremely busy sister and told her that someone must be really desperate to see her.

The patient's face lit up when she saw my sister at the front counter. She walked in briskly with a plastic grocery bag and handed it to my sister. She also said many things to my sister in Mandarin. Seeing that my sister had no clue what she was saying, I translated what I could decipher: "Ms. Ung, I brought these cucumbers for you. They are a little dry because I forgot to water them." My sister thanked her and the patient left the pharmacy. It was funny seeing the puzzled face of my sister and my coworkers. My sister thought that she had some ulterior motives for going through all the trouble just to give her the cucumbers. However, I think the patient was grateful for having such a great pharmacist that she needed to make sure her gift got to the right hand and and it was acknowledged.