Escritorio: Oktoberfest with B&B Pharmacy in Brush, Colorado

I haven't posted in quite some time, but I really wanted to showcase the day spent in a rural town of Brush, Colorado. Located about 90 miles northeast of our Aurora campus, the city of Brush had a nostalgic feeling of a simple and quiet life. With one main boulevard, Brush was a mix of smaller single-story homes and small businesses.

Our Legislative Liaison from last year's NCPA exec board is a current P4 student doing her rotation there with an independent pharmacy. Remember, National Community Pharmacists Association focuses on small independent pharmacies.

B and B pharmacy has been around since 1973 when the first-generation pharmacist first opened the store. Eventually, his son Ben went on to take over ownership and currently runs the store now. Ben was our preceptor during today's health fair activities and was such as warm and friendly pharmacist. You can see how the community easily recognized Ben and many Brush citizens stopped by our tents to say hello even if they weren't getting their flu shot or having their blood pressure red.

Our journey began at 7:30 am where we started our caravan from our Anshutz campus.


Google map of our journey.

The ride was different in that it was different scenery from the normal Downtown Denver drive. There were countless acres of farms, grazing cows and horses and farm equipment and barns.

The scenery on the drive to Brush, CO.

Once we arrived, the main scenery was the city's old factories and the Santa Fe railway cars parked on the railroad track behind it.

Close to the Main St.

B & B Pharmacy Signage

Location of Shop

We originally met at the B& B and Grocery Kart parking lot. However, the main Oktoberfest festivities were located near our original exit about a mile down. So instead of dealing with parking, we hopped into Ben’s diesel F350.

From inside the tailgate

On top of all our supplies for the health fair there were six of us plus Ben and Wendy. So we opted for the non-traditional seats: the back of the pick-up. Reminiscent of the 90’s or even Hawaii, I along with Suzy and Renjbar rode along the tailgate in the cool morning air.

Down the street

Main Boulevard

My view from the tailgate

Makeshift seats

Back to the original area

We unpacked the equipment and set up our two canopies.

Setup

Prepping the High-dose Vials

Important decisions: which band-aid?

With our tables in order, we calibrated our fancy-schmancie bone density equipment. By fancy, I mean the ten thousand dollar machine with its only grocery cart roller. We decided to host this machine at this Oktoberfest health fair because it was fit for the demographics of the city. A majority of the patients we saw today were Medicare patients.

Osteoporosis screening

First shot of the day

Blood pressure screening

Homemade cookies for the kids in exchange for a screening

Rashelle, our NCPA treasurer, received a practice and free flu-shot, just in time for our experiential office email requirement.

Callan and Rashelle's flu shot

Flexing the delts for B & B

Here are a couple of pictures of the morning events.

The start of the morning

This is Renjbar, who is supposed to be the Historian

To the left: Ben, our preceptor, and to the right, the Oktoberfest organizer and planner

More screenings

Suzy and Tarry, a B & B Customer

I was also handing out homemade brownies and cookies that Ben’s kids made. Kind of funny because we were offering brownies and many people were resistant to my offers even though they appeared to love food funnel cake, snow cones and food in-hand. One fair-goer even said, “shouldn’t you be handing out apples?” We all laughed. Yes, it was different handing out brownies. But I mean, who doesn’t enjoy homemade brownies.

We were offering blood pressure screenings, diabetes education handouts with free glucose monitors, and other freebies such as Ibuprofen and cough drops. People just can’t live without their NSAIDS, right?

Self-portrait attempts

Group shot

retry

Near 1 pm, we were near the end of the shift and the second half of the other interns arrived. Even after all the exciting opportunities to work with patients today, Ben kindly offered all of us lunch money to grab something from the fair. Ten dollar bills in hand, we were on a new mission. In this case, we were on a mission to hunt for lunch. And I mean hunt, in the fact, that everything there was a carnivore’s delight, save the funnel cake.

There was really no beer garden, so the Oktoberfest title was deceiving. In this case, a beer garden was one stand with Budweiser and many homegrown brews.

Turkey!! Legs!!

Callan and Suzy enjoying a huggee leg

Instead of bothering Ben for a ride back, we decided to walk it back to our car at the B & B parking lot. In this case, we TREKKED .7 miles or so in the middle of seemingly nowhere. Here are some pictures along the way. If I had a camera, I would have taken more stills. My battery was dying so I didn’t have a chance to upload to instagram

Sights along our walk back to B & B store

Hitch-hiking 172 miles back

inside this window, an old fire truck

Finally, we arrived at our destination and decided to take a look inside.

I liked the setup. It was simple, on the left, with the rollup there is a patient counseling area where they also have immunizations. In the far back right corner inside the pharmacy, there is an administration area for office work and a nice flatscreen.

Store-front inside Grocery Kart

Ben's dad was manning the pharmacy during the day. He had some words of advice for us "quarter centurians," or "kids". :)
Great guy and it was nice to see an Rxplus sign!