The First Time is the Only Time

For the world to work in an efficient manner that also ensures the safety of individuals, things need to be completed correctly and properly the first time. As a future pharmacist I must do things right the first time to avoid jeopardizing the safety of my patients. Getting something right the first time saves time, effort, and resources. When you get something done right the first time it ensures it does not have to be redone. When things are done incorrectly, it wastes the time of all involved and causes delays. These can be as small as having to have an order remade to having to wait even longer in construction to fix the road. When something is not done correctly the first time, more effort has to be put into the task. This can cause frustration, burn out, and excess stress that could have been avoided. Resources are not always infinite, so if something isn’t done right the first time there’s a risk that it will not be completed at all due to running out of the necessary materials. Not only does getting something done right the first time make life easier by cutting back on time and effort, but it can actually save lives.

While in BIOL250L Microbiology Lab there was an experiment we carried out involving antibiotics and how bacteria have antibiotic resistance. While doing this experiment it showed the differences in how an antibiotic can wipe out one bacterium on the antimicrobial susceptibility test while another antibiotic on the same test could have little to no effect on the bacteria as shown in Fig 1. This introduced me to the concept of wanting to have the right antibiotic for the bacteria that is present otherwise the infection will not be treated. If the infection is not treated this can result in a delay of recovery, the infection spreading to others, and/or the bacteria gaining more antibiotic resistance, making it more difficult to treat properly. With this concept of doing something right the first time being introduced I was also able to piece together and understand situations that occur beyond the classroom in a professional setting where you want something done right the first time, such as a prescription being written properly to ensure no delays in filling the script. Delays can cause patients to wait longer for prescriptions which leads to frustration. This medication delay can also be for a pain management medication, which will have the patient sitting in pain while waiting which can effect their mood as well as physical wellbeing.

Working in the pharmacy as a pharmacy sales associate / pharmacy technician getting something done right the first time is important for not just the patient but also for the workers with saving time and resources. Tying into the antibiotic resistance I learned about in BIOL250, there are times when the pharmacist on duty discovers that the antibiotic that has been prescribed will not properly treat the infection that has been diagnosed. This results in the medication not being dispensed and a call made to the doctor to ensure that the proper medication is prescribed to the patient. As a pharmacist, the goal is to ensure the patient is being treated for their conditions properly and receiving the correct medication. Another example of getting something done right the first time in the pharmacy is when a medication is filled. While filling a prescription, ensuring that the medication you are counting and putting in the vial for the patient is the correct medication is vital. If you are to grab two different medications under the assumption, they are the same because they look similar but are different it could have dire consequences. If this medication somehow makes it out to the patient and they take it a variety of things could happen. The patient could be allergic to this medication and they go into anaphylactic shock. It could be that the medication they were meant to take was a blood pressure or anti-seizure medication but because they are taking something entirely different their blood pressure could spike, or they could have an epileptic episode (seizure) resulting in hospitalization. This could have all been avoided if the prescription was filled properly the first time. Putting yourself on the side of the patient, you are putting your faith into the associates working in the pharmacy to fill your prescription properly the first time. Your time and health is important, getting it right the first time ensures you are not having to wait on it being filled again and you won’t be hospitalized by an incorrect medication. A less severe example would be working at a fast-food chain. While working at McDonalds during my very early college career, it wasn’t common but it did happen where an order would be made incorrectly. This would result in a customer being upset and us having to take the time to remake their order. While it is only a slight annoyance, if the order was done right the first time, then the customer wouldn’t have been upset and the extra time having to go back to make the order again would not have to be taken. If orders were consistently done wrong no one would want to bring their business there and those that did would be aggravated with having to have their food remade. There would be a loss on all ends; a loss of money for the restaurant, loss of time for the workers having to repeatedly remake orders, a loss of inventory with having to throw away and remake food, and a loss of time and patience for the customer. This is why we want things done right the first time.

Lastly, while working as the Microbiology lab assistant I found out the hard way how doing something right the first time made life a lot easier. On more than one occasion while making media I made mistakes. While the mistakes were easily correctable, they were an inconvenience, and in one instance rather embarrassing. During the Fall 2024 semester I was tasked with teaching a fellow student as well as a professor how to make media for research. This is a job I do on a frequent basis and I knew that getting this done right was going to not only be a good teaching moment for them, but also possibly impress my Organic Chemistry professor. While working through and showing my professor and classmate how to make media, I forgot a crucial step while making Tryptic Soy Broth (TSB) tubes. When preparing the TSB, firstly the Tryptic Soy Broth granules are mixed with distilled water and then pipetted into prepared test tubes as shown in Fig 2, capped with the appropriate colored caps, and placed in the autoclave. There are a couple different things that can be done incorrectly while preparing this media. The incorrect colored cap could be put on the tubes, resulting in the possibility of someone reaching for that media when they actually needed a different media for their test, such as a motility test. For me, however, I skipped the step of adding the TSB into the test tubes before it was put in the autoclave and instead put the flask directly into the autoclave. Thankfully we were able to add agar to the TSB, turning it into Tryptic Soy Agar, a media we use the most of, and pour the mixture into plates to be used so the media did not go to waste. However, now I had both the embarrassment of realizing my mistake as well as having to make more TSB to then pipet into test tubes and put into the autoclave when the original media came out. Doing something right the first time is not just for big life-or-death reasons but also can be to save yourself embarrassment and time with not having to have a redo.

Doing something right the first time is something that can save time, save lives, relieve frustrations, and even just be a way to avoid embarrassment. With my experiences in the classroom working in labs and learning about antibiotic resistance, I discovered it’s more important than just getting it done right the first time for convenience. This thought was only amplified with working in the pharmacy learning from the pharmacists why it is important to ensure that the patients coming in are receiving the proper medication so they can actually be treated without prolonging their infection or illness. Working as the microbiology lab assistant taught me the importance of doing things right the first time by not wanting to have that sense of embarrassment as well as managing time well. While it may not seem like as big of a deal compared to prescribing medication correctly the first time, even tasks which may seem small are also important to complete properly the first time.