The Peel — Fall Edition

By November, pharmacy school has lost its shine and found its pace. You know what’s expected of you, but the schedule keeps demanding more. The labs, case studies, and endless therapeutics readings can make even the most motivated student question if any of it will ever feel manageable. Gratitude isn’t always the first thing that comes to mind, but it’s one of the few tools that can shift how you see the work. Not in the “write in a journal” way — in the quiet, practical sense of noticing progress where it actually happens. Remember how long it used to take you to explain a mechanism or solve a dosing question? That’s growth, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Gratitude isn’t a mood; it’s perspective, and this time of year, perspective is what keeps you steady.

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NAPLEX Preparation

Question of the Week 📚

MK is a 69-year-old male visiting his primary care provider for a routine follow-up. He reports chronic pain in his right knee that has become worse in the last few months and is limiting his physical activity. The patient alternates taking Advil and Tylenol around the clock to make the pain tolerable.

Past Medical History: osteoarthritis, hypertension, dyslipidemia

Allergies: NKDA

Medications:
Advil 400 mg every 6 hours as needed for pain
Benicar HCT 40 mg/25 mg once daily
Lipitor 20 mg once daily
Tylenol 650 mg every 6 hours as needed for pain

Vital Signs: BP 139/84 mmHg, HR 75 bpm, RR 15 bpm, Ht 5′ 11″, Wt 85 kg

Laboratory Tests:
Sodium 135 mEq/L
Potassium 4.2 mEq/L
Chloride 98 mEq/L
Bicarbonate 19 mEq/L
Blood urea nitrogen 35 mg/dL
Serum creatinine 1.1 mg/dL

Assessment and Plan:
1. Osteoarthritis: pain limiting activity; refer to orthopedic surgeon for evaluation with goal to decrease NSAID use.
2. Hypertension: BP above goal; titrate therapy to optimize current BP while decreasing NSAID use.
3. Follow-up in 1 month for BP assessment.

Fall Study Advice 📖

There’s a point every semester where studying stops feeling productive and starts feeling like repetition. You’ve gone through the same drug charts so many times they blur together, and your brain feels maxed out. When that happens, switch how you study instead of pushing harder. Active recall and spaced repetition are the difference between knowing something and recognizing it on paper. Close your notes, write what you remember, and check what you missed. It’s uncomfortable — which is exactly why it works.

Don’t romanticize all-nighters or ten-hour marathons. They make you feel busy, not prepared. Study in blocks that match your focus, not your guilt. Use low-focus hours for cleanup work — organizing flashcards, color-coding notes, reviewing easy topics — and save your best brain hours for concepts you actually struggle with. Gratitude in this context isn’t about good vibes; it’s about acknowledging progress that isn’t dramatic but still counts — remembering a mechanism faster, missing one fewer detail. That’s what growth looks like in real time.

Career Tips 🏥

Professional growth doesn’t start after graduation; it starts the moment you stop memorizing for exams and start thinking about how you’ll use what you know. That means paying attention in ways that aren’t graded — noticing how a preceptor explains a medication to a confused patient, how a pharmacist handles a dosing disagreement, or how workflow changes when the volume spikes. You learn the most by observing how professionals adapt when things don’t go smoothly. Those moments teach you more about judgment and communication than any lecture ever could.

It’s also the time to build habits that will carry you into practice. Respond to emails promptly, own small mistakes, and ask better questions — not just “what” or “how,” but “why.” Pharmacy is built on collaboration, and people remember who made their jobs easier, not harder. Professionalism isn’t about titles or years of experience; it’s about reliability, curiosity, and how you show up when nobody’s grading you. The students who treat their rotations like real work are the ones who transition smoothly later — not because they know more, but because they already act like colleagues.

Wellness Corner

Pharmacy school doesn’t give you much space to breathe — which is exactly why you need to create some. Gratitude helps, but not in a motivational sense; it helps because it slows you down enough to notice what’s going right. A classmate who shares notes. A preceptor who explains a concept again without judgment. Even a small win on an exam you thought you failed. The more you train yourself to see those things, the less this program feels like an obstacle course and the more it feels like progress. You’re learning persistence, and that’s a skill as valuable as pharmacology itself.

Meal Prep Corner 🧑‍🍳

Easy Recipe: Sheet-Pan Harvest Bowl

Prep time: 10 min Cook time: 25–30 min Total: ~40 min
Serves: 2–3

Ingredients

• 1 medium sweet potato, cubed

• 1 cup brussels sprouts, halved

• 1 can (15 oz) chickpeas, drained and rinsed

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• ½ tsp salt

• ½ tsp smoked paprika

• ½ cup plain Greek yogurt

• 1 tsp lemon juice

• 1 tsp honey

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.

2. Toss sweet potato, brussels sprouts, and chickpeas with olive oil, salt, and paprika on a sheet pan.

3. Roast for 25–30 minutes, stirring once halfway through, until crisp and golden.

4. Whisk together yogurt, lemon juice, and honey for a quick drizzle.

5. Serve warm and top with the yogurt sauce.

Tip: Pack leftovers for an easy next-day lunch — they reheat beautifully and keep you fueled through long study sessions.

Freshly Squeezed Jokes 🍊

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One Last Thing 💡

Gratitude in school doesn’t mean pretending this is easy. It means realizing how much of what feels routine right now is actually progress. You’ve learned to manage information that once looked impossible, to stay composed when things stack up, and to keep showing up even when motivation slips. That’s not luck — that’s discipline becoming instinct.

The next few months will blur by in a mix of exams, projects, and deadlines, but try to pause once in a while and notice how far you’ve come. You’re learning to think like a clinician, not just a student, and that shift happens quietly — in the way you interpret lab results, question interactions, or comfort a patient during lab. Gratitude doesn’t fix the hard days, but it helps you see the point of them. The work you’re doing now is what makes you competent later, and every long night is building something you’ll rely on when the stakes are real.

—
The Grapefruit Health Team