Partners in D in Full Force during the Open-Enrollment Period

Every fall quarter, Partners in D, a state-wide initiative spearheaded by faculty members at UCSF School of Pharmacy and funded by the Amgen Foundation, offers an elective class to students interested helping seniors with their Medicare Part D plans. After thirteen hours of intensive training over a four-week period this fall, over thirty student pharmacists became Medicare Part D specialists, serving as patient advocates in the greater San Francisco areas.

Most of the Partners in D outreach events take place in senior housing complexes and clinics. In only one short week after the beginning of the open-enrollment period (November 15th to December 31st), Partners in D has gone to five different underserved communities, helping over one hundred seniors from various ethnic backgrounds find and enroll in the most economical Medicare Part D plans for 2009.

As one of the two student coordinators for the Partners in D outreach program, I attended four out of the five outreaches this past week. Given my busy second-year-pharmacy-school schedule, which involves not only studying the essential materials from my classes, but also leadership responsibilities from more than one organization, I have been very sleep-deprived this quarter. Nevertheless, the experiences and rewards that I have reaped from the time I have put into the Medicare Part D elective and outreach are invaluable.

For one thing, I have acquired a tremendous amount of information about Medicare Part D from two of the most enthusiastic authorities in this subject, Dr. Marilyn Stebbins and Dr. Tim Cutler. Having attended all the training sessions for the second time (I took the elective class last year), I now feel a lot more confident in being a patient advocate for Medicare Part D, something that I will be heavily involved in as a student-intern at my sister’s independently owned pharmacy. I now have winter job security because she has hired me as the “expert” to help patients with their Medicare Part D plans.

More importantly, I have rediscovered the joy of public service, a strong and intrinsically rewarding feeling that I have not experienced at this magnitude in a long while. No matter how tired I was after each event and how I wish there were more hours in a day for me to squeeze in some studying, I would be happy that I had been involved. Every single senior that I helped had showed a tremendous amount of appreciation for my knowledge and time to provide them with the information and assistance that they otherwise would not have gotten elsewhere.

With the guidance of my energetic preceptors, Marilyn and Tim, I have helped seniors saved thousands of dollars from their drug cost in 2009 by enrolling them in the most cost effective plans, based on their current medications. This week, the most money that Partners in D had saved for one person was over $19,000!

Who knows what these seniors would do if Partners in D were not acting on their behalves? They may be stuck on very expensive plans and end up resorting to skipping doses, not filling their prescriptions or buying their medicines from another country to save money. They may go broke paying for their medicines in order to stay healthy or end up critically ill in the hospital due to cost-related non-adherence.

The more outreach events that I attend, the more I value the foresights of the UCSF leaders who created Partners in D. However, a disturbing truth lingers in my mind: Although Partners in D is a state-wide project and all the pharmacy schools in California are helping seniors with their Medicare Part D plans, we are only reaching a small percentage of the elderly population in California, not to mention nationally.

Despite the availability of a website (http://www.medicare.gov/) as an unbiased source for plan comparisons, only about two percent of the senior population utilizes it. Most are not even aware of its existence. The plan finder tool within this site is so difficult that I, along with most of my Medicare Part D classmates, could not even navigate through without the proper training. I cannot imagine how the pre-Internet generation can figure out the way to use it without aid.

Throughout our interventions this week, we have come across seniors enrolled in unnecessary and expensive health plans through sales representatives who offer them free gym memberships or rides to their providers. As a result, they can no longer see their regular physicians and pay more for the health care. Unfortunately, for some of those seniors, the consequences of their “choices” are not reversible until the beginning of 2009.

As a product of the Asian culture and philosophy, where the elderly are well respected and supported, I have an extremely difficult time seeing the jewels of our wisdom and the bridges of our future extremely helpless in a matter so vital in their retirement years. Until the government finds more practical and available solutions to support seniors in their Medicare Part D decisions, healthcare providers are the best and most accessible resources during this long adjustment period.

To become a Medicare Part D patient advocate, you can enroll in Partners in D’s fall elective class offered through the School of Pharmacy. It is open to students from all schools at UCSF. In addition, the following are web resources for additional information about Medicare Part D:

http://partnersind.com/
http://www.medicare.gov/

It's Been a While

It seems forever since I last blogged. I should be studying for my physio exam, which is bright and early tomorrow morning, but I think I'm too burned out from trying to jam 200 pages of condensed materials in my head over the past few days. I have no idea what I know and what I don't know but I just don't care. I ran out of steam this time.

I still enjoy learning and have been pretty good sticking to my studying schedule this quarter. Unfortunately, there is just so much information for my slow brain to keep up with all the classes. I guess I'll go to the gym, get my frustrations out and hopefully will be able to get something in my head so I won't fail the test tomorrow. Arghhhh......

I Was Lucky...

to score above average on my pharmaceutical chemistry exam! It was mostly luck that I knew all the structures being tested, didn't make a mistake on the things that I did know, totally derived the pKa equation out of my understanding of basic chemistry and blanking out on only one question out of the whole test. I did study quite a lot before the exam and felt that I had a pretty good handle on things, but a lot of materials were covered in class prior to the midterm. The test, like most, could not truly reflect what a student really knows. Although I did pretty well on it, it does not mean that I know more than someone who has a lower grade on that exam. It just means that I had a good day and everything went my way.

Study Break

After a whole day of hiding in my room, I decided that I should reward myself with a very pleasant activity: jogging along Ocean Beach during sunset! When I got there, the huge round orange sun was sinking, from my car, I observed as it dipped below the horizon. The chill almost prevented me from getting out of the car, but I figured I needed to get some more oxygen in my muscle and brain, as well as putting some "stress" in my body so the glucagon and epinephrine can kick in for some glycolysis and lypolysis.

I really wanted to be right beside the water. Instead, I used gravity as an excuse to take the lighter workout by jogging on the sidewalk along the Great Highway. After a while, I was thinking to myself: "This sucks! I don't want to smell the smog from all these cars and hear their loud noise!" So, I bravely headed to the shore and was so glad that I did.

Since I was quite a distance south of Judah (the Muni stop), there was not anyone by the beach, and I had it all to myself. Although my leg muscles were sore from the over-production of lactic acid, the soothing sound of the waves, the pastel-colored sky and the endless ocean completely satified my soul with the fuel that I will need for another long study session.

Intellectual Development

After four weeks of trying, the pressure of exams (I have three midterms next week!) has finally molded me into a very good student. My daily routines now consist of eating, going to classes, reviewing notes, reading and reading. Of course, I take a break here and then, but most of the time, I'm glued to the study desk in my room when I'm not in class.

It sounds pretty boring, but I rather enjoy it. In a way, I feel so lucky to have the means to put education before everything else at this stage in life. I don't have to worry about money (at least not right now...I'll worry about repaying my loans later), kids, dramas, etc. Having the time to devote solely to learning about the human body and pharmaceutical products is such a previlege. Although I do not like exams, I must say that they have pushed my persistence in the pursue of knowledge to a whole different level! Without them, I don't think I can sustain reading and studying for over twenty minutes at a time. Hooray to good old exams! Hmm...maybe your won't hear me say that when I get my scores back next week!

More Butterflies

After an afternoon of frustration trying to study and not being very successful at it, I decided to take advantage of the free admission day at the Flower Conservatory and see the winged beauties at the Butterfly Zone before the exhibit ends on November 2.

I had a very relaxing hour clicking on my Canon 40D with the macro EF 100mm 1:2.8 lens. Although I was only able to use the tripod as a monopod (facility restriction), the images turned out really great. These are the three pictures that I really like.

While taking pictures, I met another amature with almost the same camera as mine. We started to talk about how the stripes of the zebra butterfly looks white instead of yellow in the picture. He told me a little bit about using RAW format instead of JPEG so I could preserve the real colors in my subjects. It all sounded good but I don't really have the time to edit the image after shooting. Besides, RAW files will take so much more memory, something that I am not really looking forward to dealing with right now. Therefore, I am sticking with JPEGs for a while.

A little bit into our conversation, he started offering his lenses so I could try using them (his backpack was full of lenses, used ones that he bought from other photography enthusiasts). I felt kind of bad holding his camera to try out the lens that he claims to be "a very good lens," but I didn't want to offend him by not taking his offer. I wonder if, someday, I will become as generous with my photo equipment as he was. As of now, no one is touching my "baby." I was even reluctant to lend it to my dad! Talking about obsession!

I was so sure...

that I got 100% on my first midterm exam in pharmacokinetics (PK)! I found out my the grades a few hours after the exam and learned that my it was at the bottom of the totem pole again. Most of my classmates got an A but I didn't. I still don't know what I did wrong (b/c I didn't care to pick up my exam). I thought I had the strategies and logic down for figuring out the half-life and concentration of a drug at anytime during an IV infusion. I guess I was wrong.

I was shocked...and then disappointed...for a while. Then I realized that I had done my best to study for the exam. I read and tried to understand the materials as much as I could. That's all I can ask for of myself right now. Something is not clicking and I see it as a confirmation that PK is really not my thing. It's so sad that this seems to be the easiest class out of the five that I have this quarter. Physiology, pharmacology and pharmaceutical chemistry exams are next week and I am barely going over the first week's lecture notes and reading materials for all of those subjects. As much as I enjoy learning about prostaglandins, hormones, and NSAIDs, I just can't keep up!