Morning rounds in the hospital start plenty early for countless health care professionals.
For pharmacy students in the critical care clerkship coordinated by Keith Olsen, Pharm.D., those mornings begin even earlier.
The students are expected to visit the morning’s patients, after which Dr. Olsen holds the “pharmacy morning report.” And the report isn’t exactly short – it begins 45 minutes before regular morning rounds, at which point the pharmacy students and Dr. Olsen join the attending physician, residents and other health care students for the regular morning rounds.
“I expect the students to have seen the patients and to have reviewed their charts,” said Dr. Olsen, a professor of pharmacy practice in the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Pharmacy. “It really benefits them when we go in to see the patients with the entire team. It helps them intervene on those patients’ behalf, if they need to.”
For his excellence in teaching, Dr. Olsen was awarded the College of Pharmacy’s Distinguished Teaching Award this fall. Dr. Olsen is the first two-time recipient of the annual award, which first was presented in 1994. He also won the award in 1998.
A native of Laurel, Neb., Dr. Olsen earned his undergraduate degree from Wayne State College in 1977 and his doctor of pharmacy degree from the UNMC College of Pharmacy in 1980. He is the son of Betty Olsen, who still resides in Laurel, and the late Melvin Olsen.
As a research-intensive faculty member, Dr. Olsen’s research interests revolve around infectious disease among intensive-care patients, as well as acid suppression. Among Dr. Olsen’s research is significant work in the use of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) as the drugs of choice for patients with gastric problems.
Dr. Olsen’s research forces him to think critically, he said, and his students say that Dr. Olsen’s ability to present the “big picture” provides them with the information they’ll need to be competent, knowledgeable pharmacists.
“I always challenge the students to learn and to think as critically as possible,” Dr. Olsen said. “Hopefully, I teach in a way to provide the type of learning that the students will maintain over time. It doesn’t do them much good if they know the information for a day or two and then forget it.”
For four to six months a year, Dr. Olsen serves as the preceptor to students who are rotating through four-week critical care clerkships. He uses pharmacokinetic principles and a wealth of pharmaceutical knowledge to make certain that the critically ill patients – most of them on ventilators in the intensive care unit – are receiving optimal drug therapy. Most of the patients are on 10 to 15 medications. In the afternoon, after rounds, Dr. Olsen and the students engage in more traditional classroom discussions.
“I’ll give them some slides, and we try to think more in-depth about some of the issues related to critical care medicine,” Dr. Olsen said. “The students aren’t graded at the end of the first week, but at the end of the fourth week. I really look for improvement and the ability to grasp the health issues that we deal with.”
In addition to his clerkship teaching, Dr. Olsen serves as the infectious disease section coordinator for the pharmacotherapy II course, and he lectures on issues related to critical care, infectious diseases and acid suppression in other courses for the pharmacy, physician assistant and nurse practitioner programs.
Dr. Olsen and his wife, Vicky, live in Omaha and are the parents of two children.
UNMC is the only public health science center in the state. Its educational programs are responsible for training more health professionals practicing in Nebraska than any other institution. Through its commitment to education, research, patient care and outreach, UNMC has established itself as one of the country’s leading centers in cancer, transplantation biology, bioterrorism preparedness, neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases, genetics, biomedical technology, ophthalmology and arthritis. UNMC’s research funding from external sources is now more than $72 million annually and has resulted in the creation of nearly 2,400 highly skilled jobs in the state.