Ask a Student Pharmacist – Rosa Macrito
UIC College of Pharmacy students are some of the best and brightest student pharmacists in the nation. In this new series, Ask a Student Pharmacist, we connect with some of our students, asking them to share more about themselves and their academic interests. We hope this series sheds light on what today's student pharmacists are working on and can show what it's like to be a student pharmacist at the UIC College of Pharmacy. In this piece, we caught up with Rosa Macrito, P3, to discuss her internship experience at Mout Sinai Hospital.
- When and how did you learn about the internship opportunity at Mount Sinai?
- I learned about Mount Sinai's internship program during finals week of my P2 year when I came across it in one of Deb Fox's weekly career e-mails. Hospital/clinical pharmacy has always been somewhat of a mystery to me, so for some time, I had been looking for an opportunity that would provide some exposure to hospital pharmacy without my having to pick up a part-time hospital technician job. So as soon as I came across this internship, I jumped at the opportunity!
- What were some of your responsibilities?
- I spent half of my time shadowing clinical pharmacists in the surgical and medical intensive care units (I was a bit too intimidated by the emergency department, so I avoided that!); the other half of my time was spent sifting through patient-level data to evaluate proper use and dosing of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents in patients (most of whom had CKD) who presented to Sinai via the ED.
- How did your education at UIC College of Pharmacy, thus far, prepare you to get the most out of this experience?
- Obviously, there is a lot to know in pharmacy - and admittedly, nearly everything I encountered in the critical care setting was novel to me. Despite that, because of my coursework and experiences at UIC College of Pharmacy, I had the background I needed to ask the right questions and get the most out of every day I spent in the ICU. It also helped tremendously that I had an incredible pharmacist (Dr. Andrew DeSio) with an awesome gift for teaching.
- Plans after pharmacy school?
- I've always gravitated toward medical writing and drug information. Communicating medical and scientific information via the written word - whether to patients or to practitioners - has always brought me such joy! Since joining the UIC Drug Information Group as an extern in early 2020, I've only become more certain that those are the interests I'd like to pursue.
Modified on October 22, 2021