He’s Always Walking Really Fast!

By Emily Min
Third-Year Pharmacy Student

Whenever I mention having Dr. David Quan as my RAMPS mentor to pharmacy colleagues, they always comment on how quickly he moves. Seeing Dr. Quan’s work firsthand, I understand why he is in perpetual motion. As a trusted clinician and a popular instructor, Dr. Quan wears many hats. I witnessed the constant juggling act that his position requires him to perform throughout my RAMPS experience.

Dr. Quan is the pharmacist on the liver transplant service and has a huge body of specialty knowledge on keeping transplant patients healthy throughout their hospital stay and after discharge. He makes the rounds with the liver transplant team daily. During rounds, his physician colleagues seek his opinion on many different issues. Their respect for his expertise is very evident. While Dr. Quan is serving as a consultant to physicians during rounds, he is also fielding constant questions from the pharmacy students and residents he precepts. Dr. Quan’s liver service is a popular rotation because of his well-deserved reputation as a kind person and patient instructor.

In addition to rounding, Dr. Quan also invests a lot of time on medication reconciliation, both on admission and discharge. Most patients enter the liver transplant service very ill. They are on multiple medications to manage the symptoms of their advanced liver disease. After transplant, their health improves dramatically. They feel better and even look better as their skin tone returns to normal and their edema subsides. However, the heavy medication burden they entered the hospital with persists on discharge because they must ward off organ rejection. Dr. Quan helps to ensure continuity of medication therapy upon admission. Upon discharge, he carefully counsels patients on their new regimens and makes sure that the right medications are waiting for them at their home pharmacies.

Given the many responsibilities Dr. Quan carries on a daily basis, I was very curious about how he finds time to prepare the lectures he gives to pharmacy students. I came to realize that many faculty members like Dr. Quan get no “time off” to be involved in student life and learning. They do it on their own time because they care about students and the next generation of pharmacists.

I came away from my RAMPS experience appreciating the huge wealth of knowledge Dr. Quan carries with him and his ability to convey that information to a student like myself in an effective and clear way. I hope to one day have the opportunity to invest in students in the way that volunteer faculty like Dr. Quan do everyday.