September Blog!

Community Service Hours: 0 hours; Cumulative Fall Service Hours: 0 hours    

    I can't believe it has been almost two months of living in New Orleans and being in the Pharmacology Master's program! I was definitely apprehensive about starting graduate school and taking graduate-level exams while balancing other aspects of this transition to a new city, but after three rounds of exams, I'm feeling mostly comfortable/confident with the study methods I'm using. We're currently in the Neuromuscular Physiology module, but I think the Inflammation module has been my favorite so far. It was so interesting to learn about acetaminophen overdose and the actual mechanism underlying those adverse effects, especially because I grew up with warnings to be careful with acetaminophen dosing without really taking the initiative to figure out why. I also appreciated the Antihistamines lecture as someone with ridiculously severe spring allergies, and I'm sure the things I've learned (mainly the drug list) will be so helpful come next semester. 

    For volunteering, I've started the process to become a volunteer at the Family Resources Center of Manning Family Children's Hospital. As a Family Resources Center volunteer, I get to round on patients with two other volunteers to see who wants to play games or do arts and crafts for a few hours, not only as a way to make their visits easier but also as a way to give parents a well-deserved break. While I haven't started my volunteering shifts yet, I have completed the orientation modules and the Employee Health visit, so I'll be all good to go once I hear back from my volunteer coordinator. I did receive 4 volunteer hours for doing all of those things but wasn't sure if they counted because I haven't really helped anybody yet, so those haven't been included in this month's count or the semester's cumulative hours. I'm so excited to be volunteering with the Children's Hospital because I had the opportunity to do something similar in undergrad and got to meet some of the most resilient people. I can't wait to do something similar in a new city I get to call home.