Anthony Perissinotti, PharmD, BCOP: As a pharmacist, I first received training as a student on my rotations. We had topic discussions on tumor lysis syndrome especially when we start patients on chemotherapy we would discuss that patient case with my mentors and preceptors. I further had more knowledge during my first- and second- year residencies, where again mentors taught me their experience with tumor lysis syndrome. And, of course, I did my own readings. After that point it was really all independent [learning].

I’m on services every single day of the week so I see the highest of high-risk patients for tumor lysis syndrome every single day. So I see the trends, I see what patients go through, I see all the lab abnormalities. I try to just gain more experience by watching my patients and watching their trends. From there what I do to further my education is studying the trends. I might start a new initiative or a new treatment strategy. I’ll do sort of a pre- and post-analysis to understand whether or not I improved patents outcomes with that. I think doing research really pushed me to what I like to think of myself as an expert at this point.

It’s really best practice to train everybody around you. I want to empower others on my team, my attendings, my fellows, other residents to be able to monitor for, treat and prevent tumor lysis syndrome. While I’m on service I educate the interns and everyone on the team during rounds to know what they should be expecting when we start a new patient on chemotherapy. I’ve also created institutional guidelines so that they can refer to those when I’m not around so that they are able to properly prevent and treat and of course monitor for tumor lysis syndrome.

Transcript edited for clarity.