The Script: Student pharmacist Rachel Brunner reflects on Florence

Rachell Brunner | 11/27/2017

When the opportunity to study pharmacy in Italy presented itself, I jumped on it. Spending an entire month in another country gave me the unique chance to submerge myself in another culture, learn from other people and health care systems and become a better pharmacist.

For the month of June, eight people from my class flew to Florence, Italy, for our first final-year pharmacy rotation. We were split into two groups of four, one group assigned to Carregi Ospedale and my group assigned to Farmacia Le Bagnese.

During our time at the pharmacy we learned about independent business ownership and management from Dottores Luigi and Raffaele Pescitelli. Their business is not only a trusted community pharmacy, it is also the single compounding pharmacy in their area, an ambulatory care center for blood analysis, blood pressure, and cardiac monitoring, as well as a bone density monitoring clinic. The pharmacists were all friendly and knowledgeable and were eager to teach us about their systems.

We spent out weekdays in the pharmacies and our weekends traveling. I explored Florence, Venice, Cinque Terra, Verona, and Rome where we attended Papal Mass in St. Peter’s Square. We tripled our Fitbit step goals and picked up enough Italian language to get us through the month. We drank gallons of espresso and ate pounds of gelato, tons of pizza, and boatloads of pasta. When it was time to fly home, we had to talk ourselves out of staying there forever.

I would encourage any future student pharmacists with the opportunity to study abroad for a final-year rotation to do it. Take out the extra loan if you need to. Allow yourself to grow in a completely different culture. You will never get this chance again, and I know I would have regretted not doing it. In the end, this experience, like most others, is only as good as you allow it to be. I allowed it to be the time of my life.

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