The semester is finally finished! My last final was Organic Chemistry at 8:00 on Friday morning. This ended my second year of college. Its very hard to believe that I have already finished two years of college. I am going to be a third year student next fall! My two day summer was very fun and interesting. On Friday night I hung out with my roommates and a few friends that were left on campus. Saturday my friends and I went to Six Flags in Agawam. It was awesome. We went on all the big roller coasters and had a fun filled day. The best part of the day was playing various amusement park games. After Six Flags, the ten of us stayed in a hotel in Western MA (near my home town).
That was my weekend which really helped me relax and prepare myself for work on Monday.

Yesterday was my first day of work at Dana Farber. The first half of the day consisted of orientation and the second part of the day I toured the hospital and saw where exactly I was going to work. I will work with 2 of my fellow classmates and on SP1. The environment at DFCI is much different than my last hospital job. I will be preparing IV solutions within 20 feet of where the patients receive treatment, which is a complete change from my last job where I made the solutions in the basement. The area is small and has two pharmacists and three technicians. Everything is run very efficiently and works like clockwork. Today I got a chance to mix a few basic chemotherapy drugs which was really interesting. Chemo drugs are completely different than making regular IV solutions. There are special needles and filters that prevent the drug from spilling. The preparation of cytotoxic drugs is very dangerous so extra caution is required. I am very excited to start my first full day of work tomorrow. As for now, I am going to enjoy the remainder of the evening. So far, I thoroughly enjoy the life of a co-op student.

Posted by Neil Labak at 8:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The semester is almost over! There are three days of classes left, and then it is time for finals. I have one final Wednesday, two finals Thursday and then two finals next week. Normally, this is the hardest part of the school year due to exams and the approach of summer. Going to the library instead of enjoying the weather is near impossible on beautiful spring days. It takes a lot of dedication and will power to study for finals during this time period. During this busy time of the year, I have been able to squeeze in a few Red Sox games this past week (one of which was against the Yankees), and also attend some of the Spring Fest activities that are going on this week. Each year there is a week known as Spring Fest, that is usually right before finals. It includes many campus wide events and also ends with a big concert at the end of the week. Managing all the finals and also enjoying the various activities spring brings is a very tough task, but it is very important to give your brain a rest during the hectic week of finals.

As I said earlier, I attended two Red Sox games this past week. The game Thursday night was awesome. My friends and I had standing room only tickets and we stood behind home plate. It was a very offensive game so the crowd was crazy. The Sox - Yanks game Friday night was also very good. Although we lost, the crowd was awesome. I sat in the right field grand stand. I got to witness a few rowdy Yankees fans get heckled and eventually thrown out, so that was exciting. This past Saturday night was the Spring Fest concert. Ludacris and The Roots were the two big headliner bands. I did not attend, but I heard it was awesome. The rest of this semester will be spent in the library to prepare for finals. Summer is so close, and so is my co-op at Dana Farber. I cannot wait for May to come. Have a great day!

Posted by Neil Labak at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone, I would like to clarify a previous statement I made in the blog "March Madness". I had previously mentioned that in order to pass a course in the professional years of pharmacy (years 3-6), you would need to achieve a minimum grade of a B- (2.7 on the 4.0 scale). This information is INCORRECT. The expectations and requirements for all pharmacy students are as follows:
To progress from the 2nd year to the 3rd (1st professional) year, students must have a GPA of at least 2.7. After students have passed into the professional curriculum, they must maintain a GPA of at least 2.0 (and receive no grades less than "C") to remain in good academic standing. This means the minimum passing grade for pharmacy courses (PMD and PSC) is a C.

I am very sorry for any confusion my statement may have caused.
Thanks and have a great day!

Posted by Neil Labak at 5:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)