I would like to thank Sarah Zorzit and the members of CAPhO award Committee for their kind recognition and the great opportunity in awarding this year’s CAPhO learning grant. I am very happy and appreciative to learn that I was selected as one of the recipients.
I was assigned to the oncology department after completing my postgraduate in 2018. Adapting as a clinical pharmacist in oncology ward was indeed challenging for me after working in the non-oncology ambulatory care for more than 5 years. Therefore, I thrive to improve myself in clinical oncology, pain management and palliative care by enrolling to Advanced Oncology for Pharmacists (University of Toronto School of Continuous Studies) course on January 2020. Although, I have attended workshops organised by the local institutions, the content was more general for doctors, nurses and allied health. At this moment, there are no courses offered in Malaysia or Asian region that focus specifically on Oncology Pharmacy.
After completing this course, it helps to broaden my knowledge by comparing our local and Canadian practices in terms of management and treatment in solid malignancies, pain management and palliative care. It was rewarding that this course does covers some hematologic malignancies and I was able to gain new insights when there were hemato-oncology patients admitted in ward for radiotherapy treatment as my hospital only caters for solid malignancies. I was able to apply and consolidate the knowledge relevant to my practice for example, how to care and explain to a patient or caregivers regarding chemotherapy and pain management. Besides that, I felt more confident to discuss or give recommendation on chemotherapy regimens, immunotherapy, toxicities, drug-dose adjustment and care plan for patients with the Clinical Oncologist. Overall, the various topics in this course that I’ve learn were valuable and I did shared certain relevant topics with my colleagues.
As this was a hybrid course, the Academic Director (Dr Kathy) for this program was very encouraging and initially allowed the in-class session to be joined via live webcast. Due to Covid19, the whole class was eventually changed into online classroom which made learning much easier and accommodating for me. Despite the 12 hours difference, 10am in Toronto vs 10pm in Kuala Lumpur, the online class was well organised and engaging during the discussions sessions.
Thank you again CAPhO for your generosity and support.
Learning Mustn’t Stop with Covid19
With sincere gratitude & best wishes,
Lenny Lee Cheann, BPharm(Hons), MSc (Clinical Pharmacy)
Radiotherapy & Oncology Pharmacy, Hospital Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia