Got Milk?

Hmmm. we've been suggested to add milk to our diet - a glass a night. Supposedly to help us put on some weight (some people can be so jealous...>:]) but the intention is good. Not right to stay so thin - our BMI sez we're on the lower limits bordering being underweight. Not good.

The Diet Channel states for a safe weight gain diet add an additional 500 calories to current food intake in the form of milk, bran, avocado etc which seems to us more like breakfast meals.

PubMed found us this article:
Milk, dairy fat, dietary calcium, and weight gain: a longitudinal study of adolescents.Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005 Jun;159(6):543-50. Berkey CS, Rockett HR, Willett WC, Colditz GA.

Of course, it's an American study.

We needn't take this seriously as we personally think that we won't be seeing results of any sort. But of course there is the need to ensure that it isn't all just rumours or some old-wives recipe. The only side-effects we need watch out are: dragon-breath syndrome and butterfly stomach. Otherwise we're going to enjoy our full cream until we get bored and go semi-skimmed. Or skimmed. Or probably soy milk, much more tastier. Or powdered milk?

Moving In Once More!

Hello folks...guess we'll be moving back to Blogger again. Started before here, but never really blogged and so left this account to gather dust. Then came Friendster's Blog and we'd somehow used it a fair bit. So now we'd thought we'll make use of our Blogger account as well rather than leave it all miserable and forgotten. Anyways this is more to satisfy our fickle behaviour of using another blogging account other than our Friendster one.

Fickleness At Work

First off, our job, or rather, lack of a job.

Since finishing our housemanship at Universiti Hospital aka University Malaya Medical Centre, the question, "Where to work next-ar?" popped up. Hey, we're a pharmacist, and there are many options open to us (as a profession) while we are still fresh graduates (as seen in newspapers: 'Fresh grads encouraged to apply'). And what options have we? And what we think of the job?

• Retail Pharmacist

Firstly retail pharmacies need a pharmacist's license in order to sell drugs. The retail pharmacy is a good place if you're interested in opening your own pharmacy. Learn management, purchasing and dealing with customers all in one!

Been in Guardian, but after a while sure get restless of sitting in the same place la. Guardian's OK but you've to work shyte hours at times. Ideally be a Guardian locum but no job security there. Am looking for one that does office hours and is near home.

• Hospital/Clinical Pharmacist

Now, the clinical pharmacist can be one of the more respected pharmacist around, but so much so only in the hospital setting. Drug knowledge is primed and honed as it is put to everyday use. Information is made readily available eg Micromedex. If you're good, you can make the top spots available in the pharmacy department - Oncology Pharmacist, Purchasing Pharmacist or Chief Pharmacist. Plus the medical benefits are much better.

Overworked, underpaid. In general, that is, and even more so in the government than in a private hospital. Normal office hours with shift duty occasionally. Bleh. In government patients sometimes can get you shellshocked, or like how the 'flu can spread, patients with hypertension can pass it to you too!

• Medical Representative

Work time is flexible, depending on the people you have to meet. For a pharmacist things are easier as you'd be more familiar with medical products. Downside of it is that you've to watch what you talk about regarding medication/drugs (best advice: don't talk about it!) - there goes impartiality that's part of being a retail/clinical pharmacist. However you do get to meet the doctors/specialist/medical profession that may become your own doctors in the future.

Sadly, we reacted badly to this job. Unfounded anxiety. Would have enjoyed myself otherwise in the younger years of our life. Had not seen 10% of what the job's about before we'd thrown in the towel.

• Medical Writer

For them who're good with words and interviews. It's also an interesting line as you get to cover events in various places, making you a bit more of a jet-setter. However, there are times you'd have to source your own article and that's a goodly challenge.

Medical Tribune cannot accept EzyHealth-style writing, and we haven't really an interesting style of writing in the first place. Would be an interesting option to try, actually. Unfortunately we've no experience to back our resume up in this.

• Clinical Research Associate

We guess there's one stress that this job shares with that of a medical writer - datelines! As far as we've heard this job deals in liasing with the research team in hospitals, getting results...err, all right, to be honest we don't know much of the details the job entails but the rough gist of it is that there's loads of micromanagement with different people and tight datelines. Another thing, like the medical representative you've to watch what you talk about regarding drugs in different company...

We guess being a rather slow person we won't be able to do jobs that require datelines at normal working hours.

• Production Pharmacist

Right. Be in charge of the Good Manufacturing Practise that's oh-so-important so that everyone everywhere from the prescriber to the pharmacist to the end-user have complete confidence in the product.

Nope. Not a line we're interested in in the first place.

• Regulatory Pharmacist

Also another job that we haven't much information as to what actually happens, but mainly deals in ensuring that drugs in Malaysia adhere to regulations, as well as the registration of new drugs. If not working for the Bureau but in some other company then the gist of it is to make sure the company's products are registered ASAP.

Have thought about it when we first finished our housemanship. But while people put out 'fresh grads may apply' they're actually looking for those whom just finish their housemanship from the Bureau. Yeesh.

• Pharmacovigilant Pharmacist

We're not sure if we'd gotten the term correct. This one puts us in mind of a CRA but rather than liasing with people it's more of looking into drug reactions and interactions, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. Need to find out more.

This was a line we'd only heard of when a friend got the job. Well, doesn't interest us as well.

So. Can't see a future for myself down the lines that we're not interested in. Already had the advice of the following, "Life is cruel, not everything falls into your lap. When you come to a junction in life you must choose a path, you cannot sit and wait at the junction." Doesn't mean that we can't look and see what each path has to offer before we decide which path suits us best: we've already been down the hospital, retail and medical rep road. Have we decided? For now we've decided to stick back with retail. But who knows? we're fickle enough to might want a job change later on!