Evidence of Learning #3

Yukthi Kadari

Name of Mentor: Kent Hertel

Profession: Retail Pharmacist at Market Street Coppell

Location and Business Name: 700 N Denton Tap Rd, Coppell, TX 75019

Date of Interview: 12/13/18

Time: 5:00 P.M.

My first mentor visit with Mr. Hertel was amazing. I learned so much and it has really helped me

through my ISM journey. I was able to meet Dhevani the intern there and she was extremely kind and I

was able to discuss my hard copy portfolio with her as well. The visit started with me going over the

mentor handbook with Mr. Hertel and Dhevani and afterwards me answer some questions they might

have. Next Devani started asking me if I had some interesting research topics that I would like to pursue

for my final produce. After telling her some topics she also told me some that are very interesting and are

current problems in the pharmaceutical industry. I first one being the opioid epidemic. Which is a huge

problem especially in pharmacy’s resulting in the loss of $$$ and the deaths of many. There are a lot of

people addicted to drugs in our society today and it is now becoming more popular is teens. Vaping and

doing drugs seem like a common trend and something that is considered to be cool. Little do the teens

that are participating in these activities know that what they are doing may have long term effects on their

brains.

The next thing that we discussed about is medical adherence. There is medication given to some

patients for a long amount of time especially for patients that have cancer. After recovering from

whatever illness they might have they tend to want the medication either because they are addicted or

because they think the medication will reduce the amount of pain they are going to. This causes a lot of

problems because patients are begging pharmacists to give them the medication because they are “in

pain”, even though the reason is because they are addicted to the medication. Doctors and pharmacists are
trying to fix this problem by trying to reduce the dosage that patients are taking of the medication in the

hospital so they don’t get used to it.

Afterward I told them about how I have a display board to complete for the Winter Showcase and

if I can borrow some things from the pharmacy. Fortunately I was able to find some syringes and used

medicine bottles. I then learned about the process of reading a prescription and entering information into

the system to find the patients information and make sure the date of birth on the prescription matches

with the information on the system. Something else that is important to look at is the date that the

prescription is given. If it’s given a year ago obvious it’s been too long for the prescription to be valid. I

also learnt how the pill counter works and how to clean the pill counter. Finding the medication on the

shelves is also very easy because they are in alphabetical order.

After this visit I started researching about the opioid epidemic and medical adherence to see if

one of them could contribute to my final product. Next visit I plan on learning what is stored in the

refrigerator and about the specific functions of some common drugs. An OW focused on the opioid

epidemic would insightful and interesting.