Day in the Life of a Critical Care Pharmacist
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Wonder what it is like to be a critical care pharmacist? I’m a board-certified critical care pharmacist and unlike many believe, I do not dispense medications all day.
Here is what a “typical” day is like as a critical care pharmacist – from my experience at University of Utah Health – the center I completed my 2-year residency training at. Of course, no day is the same nor considered “typical” but an overview of what is is like to work as a pharmacist in this setting.
There are many different ICU settings – I have experience in the Surgical, Cardiovascular, Medical, Neuro and Burn ICUs at University of Utah Health. In addition, I completed pediatric experiences in the NICU and PICU (at Intermountain Children’s) along with Emergency Department experiences in the level-1 trauma ED. The ED is a completely different schedule so it is not addressed here.
My Day as a Critical Care Pharmacist…
5:30-6:00 am
- Arrive at the hospital and prepare work in the Intensive Care Unit Pharmacist Office.
- Login electronic health records system (Cerner or EPIC from personal experience)
- Start big-picture with overview of how the ICU feels and looks, walk around the ICU and see how team members and professionals are doing, stop by a few patient rooms especially newly admitted patients to see what is physically going on with IV pumps, physical appearance, etc.
6:00 – 7:30 am
- Start detail work – work-up for each ICU patient
- Existing patients familiar with: orders from overnight, changes in last 12-24 hours
- New patients: full work-up to understand why they were admitted, preliminary medication reconciliation, progress note and interventions
- Format for gathering information is either head-to-toe (Review of Systems) or Problem List
7:30 – 8:00 am
- Teaching time – discuss patients with pharmacy students or pharmacist residents before ICU rounds begin
8:00 – noon
- ICU inter-professional rounds
- Format and duration vary between unit and attending leading the teams
- Walk room to room or Sit-down rounds in conference room
- Attending may be critical care intensivist, anesthesiologist critical care, pulmonary critical care or surgeon lead
- Each member of the team has a turn to speak about each patient – usually the medical resident presenting the patient, nurse going over bedside information and rest of team having input – from pharmacist, dietician, social worker, respiratory therapist, PT/OT.
Noon – 12:30 pm
- Lunch and break
12:30 – 2:00 pm
- Check emails and new orders for patients (both medication and non-medication orders)
- Finish medication reconciliation, preventative care evaluations (for immunizations), pain management evaluations and patient education 1-on-1 in patient rooms
- Write progress notes for patient chart
- Write pass-off notes for Pharmacist-only view in EPIC
2:00 – 3:00 pm
- Teaching time with pharmacy students and residents
- Walk the unit, talk with nurses, medical residents, attendings to ensure all questions are followed up and patients are doing well
3:00 – 3:30 pm
- Verbal pass-off to swing shift pharmacist (2:00 – 10:00 or 3:00 – 11:00 pm shift)
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Jessica Louie, PharmD, APh, BCCCP is the CEO of Clarify, Simplify, Align and Host of The Burnout Doctor Podcast. Dr. Louie uses her signature Burnout Doctor Method to coach burned out pharmacists & professionals to simplify because work-life balance is a LIE. Align work into your life & break free from people pleasing, perfectionism and thrive in life on YOUR TERMS.