Placement #4 - Hawes Whiston & Co.

I have officially checked off my fourth and last community placement here in Bath! I spent this past week at Hawes Whiston & Co. Chemists. In contrast to my last placement, which was around the corner from my room, Hawes Whiston is about a 20 minute hike to the other side of town. After this week, I can confidently say that I have had my fill of community pharmacy...although it was not a bad experience by any means. This is probably the most "traditional" pharmacy I've been at, at least in terms of decor. The building has been a "chemist's shop" for ages, so they have lots of antique books and glassware and instruments all around. It makes for a very pleasant atmosphere...and a lot of fun if you have a slow day and the pharmacist decides to do some "cleaning" in the basement and comes up with all sorts of treasures!

I worked most of the week with Simon, an energetic, scattered, and somewhat jumpy pharmacist, and Maria, an absolutely delightful dispensing technician. Ange and Heidi worked in the shop as counter assistants and were lovely as well. Luckily, Hawes Whiston uses the same computer system as Pulteney, so I didn't have to learn a new interface for processing prescriptions. I also helped Maria with filling weekly "dosette" boxes for patients who have trouble with compliance, and did some measuring of methadone for addicts who had supervised administration.

Like most of the other pharmacies I've been in here, Hawes Whiston has a delivery service for customers who have difficulty getting in to the shop. Unlike the other pharmacies, they have a proper little delivery vehicle...I love it!

We were running a bit behind on Friday and Heidi had a lot of deliveries to make, so I volunteered to pitch in and drop off a bag on Pulteney Street on my way home from work. Sadly, they did not offer to let me drive the van :(. I was told to just put the package in the letterbox through the slot in the door. When I got to the house, I found the slot to be about 2 inches tall...and several of the medications were far to large to fit through! I felt like I should have been on Candid Camera as I tried to make it work...I took the drugs out of the bag, took some of them out of the boxes...but there was no way three of the bottles were going to fit. I rang the bell, even though the people were supposed to be out of town, and then contemplated leaving the bag on the stoop. Fortunately the couple had returned and the gentleman made his way down to the door to collect the medications from me. Perhaps a rather anticlimactic ending, but certainly more of an adventure than anticipated!