Member-only story
Life is One Big Learning Curve.
And it never ends or it shouldn’t.
When I am organized and everything is coming together, life seems to have other plans.
I was so excited when I first started working in the Poison Centre, but I also had reservations that I might not be able to do this work. Everyone that I worked with had at least one degree and lots had two. I didn’t have a degree.
I didn’t realize how fortunate I was to work with the type of people I did at first. My boss, Derek, was one of those guys that took the time to get to know his staff. He rarely attended after-work get-togethers or parties unless it was the obligatory Christmas party.
I thought that it was because he didn’t like parties. I later found out that it was because he felt that people would feel better and be able to ‘let go’ if the boss wasn’t there.
There was research pharmacists, critical care nurses, and toxicologist. It was a small group and we all worked together and brought different skills to the table. Each Friday somebody would present a case and we would discuss how it could have been handled better.
While we would answer calls from the public, we also would help physicians dealing with overdoses in the ER or ICU, we discussed drug interactions with pharmacists and we taught the public…
