dblcheck
03-26-2004, 01:05 AM
This excerpt from pills-a-go-go by Jim Hogshire sums up how I feel about being a pharmacist.
The Tormented Mind of the Pharmacist
THE BIG SCAM
It probably doesn't take more than one day on the job to show a newly-minted pharmacist that he or she has been tricked. Pharmacy school is rough -- you can't get through it without advanced calculus, chemistry and super dedication. Pharmacy school lasts 6 years. And it costs a lot.
No one would endure pharmacy school for the chance to count pills, let alone be hated by customers and held in contempt by doctors. So, to make students cram pharmacokinetics (which they will never use on the job), the school outright lies to them. It promises that they will be liked. This is the opposite of reality, of course, which just makes the hoax crueler. Here are students who want to be liked and valued by the community, and slave away for respectability and honor they will never get.
Pharmacy schools promise an esteemed position in medicine, in society even. Students are told again and again about the high degree of trust placed upon pharmacists by patients and doctors. They see pictures of kindly people in smooth coats holding up test tubes or being beamed at by reassured old ladies. They are shown a folklorish survey rating how certain professions are trusted. As they are told, pharmacists are only a notch or two below Supreme Court Justice -- and far above a doctor.
As a pharmacist, they learn, "You Are Trusted."
THE SUCKER PUNCH
Of course, the reality of pharmacy is that it is a service industry, not much different than a dry cleaner. Pharmacists are not pillars of the community, they are pill-counters and stock boys. And respect? Please.
Instead of being part of a benevolent triangle of medical care, the pharmacist finds himself at the raw end of an abusive process nobody likes.
Here's where you, the consumer come in.
Customers arrive at the pharmacy because they have been hurt or are sick. They have already made the trek to the doctor's office, lost a day of work, been kept waiting and charged a hundred bucks to spend 3 minutes with a doctor who hands them a piece of paper. Now they have taken the bus to the drugstore and are about to be appalled by the money they are going to shell out to a grump behind a counter so high it makes them feel like a three-year-old.
Pharmacy customers are not happy to be there. They aren't happy, period. Nothing the pharmacist does is going to make them happy. But, too bad, the pharmacist isn't all that content himself. He's been swindled so badly he's never going to trust anyone again. Since old people take the most medicine, the majority of his customers are old people -- cranky old people who complain about prices and ask the same stupid questions a thousand times a day. This is just more gravel in the pharmacist's shoes.
The collision between a sick, ripped-off patient and a tired, ripped-off pharmacist is predictable, and mean, as a cockfight. The customer grumbles at the pharmacist and asks some ridiculous question. The phone is ringing. People standing in line start clearning their throats. The pharmacist slows down, shoots a few withering looks, then doles out the pills. Sufficiently abased, customers begin to limp home -- finally. The pharmacist counts pills and waits for more abuse.
There are no test tubes in sight. No mortar and pestles, no hand-in-hand work with the doctor. In fact there are no real prescriptions anymore. A clerk in a pizza joint has a more complex job than a pharmacist.
Doctors prescribe ready-made medicines, often by brand name. Doctors decide if a generic can be substituted. The pharmacist just gets the right bottle of pills and starts counting. A pigeon could do the pharmacist's job. There is no pharmacological expertise going on in a pharmacy. All those nights of midnight oil, learning absorption rates of alkenes into mucous membranes means nothing now. That was just the price for a pill-selling license. The pharmacy school didn't breathe a word of this.
Neither did the pharmacy school teach practical skills the pharmacist actually needs. They don't teach how to run a cash register or catch shoplifters or even things related to pills. Pill identification for example. Pharmacy students can drawl the molecular structure of a drug, but cannot visually ID or name the top 20 or 100 drugs they will sell.
Of course, as years grind by under fluoresecent lights, behind a silly counter, the phamacist eventually learns all this. But it's all on-the-job and self-taught.
Then there's pill-counting--the most obvious part of pharmacy drudgery. Just how much organic chemistry is necessary to count pills? This is even more humiliating since the number of pills in a bottle are often counted by mechanical devices; and if they're not, it's a job a pigeon could do quite well. It's also something the old bag snapping about high prices can and will check.
Pharmacists are not taught to read doctor handwriting, which really and truly is bad. Despite the jokes, inability to read doctors' handwriting can lead to serious mistakes. People have been killed by script f*ck-ups and pharmacists commonly misdispense drugs because of errors in reading the prescription. Then they get sued and kicked out of the business forever.
Calling the doctor's office for clarification of a prescription makes the pharmacist a pest. The receptionist treats him as an irritant. The doctor treats him as an idiot. Should the pharmacist have any other "problems" with a prescription, he comes dangerously close to questioning the doctor's wisdom. It's bad enough to be an idiot, it's even worse to be a loathsome pipsqueak. The brittle ego of a pharmacist cannot risk calling a doctor every time he thinks there's something wrong with a script.
The Tormented Mind of the Pharmacist
THE BIG SCAM
It probably doesn't take more than one day on the job to show a newly-minted pharmacist that he or she has been tricked. Pharmacy school is rough -- you can't get through it without advanced calculus, chemistry and super dedication. Pharmacy school lasts 6 years. And it costs a lot.
No one would endure pharmacy school for the chance to count pills, let alone be hated by customers and held in contempt by doctors. So, to make students cram pharmacokinetics (which they will never use on the job), the school outright lies to them. It promises that they will be liked. This is the opposite of reality, of course, which just makes the hoax crueler. Here are students who want to be liked and valued by the community, and slave away for respectability and honor they will never get.
Pharmacy schools promise an esteemed position in medicine, in society even. Students are told again and again about the high degree of trust placed upon pharmacists by patients and doctors. They see pictures of kindly people in smooth coats holding up test tubes or being beamed at by reassured old ladies. They are shown a folklorish survey rating how certain professions are trusted. As they are told, pharmacists are only a notch or two below Supreme Court Justice -- and far above a doctor.
As a pharmacist, they learn, "You Are Trusted."
THE SUCKER PUNCH
Of course, the reality of pharmacy is that it is a service industry, not much different than a dry cleaner. Pharmacists are not pillars of the community, they are pill-counters and stock boys. And respect? Please.
Instead of being part of a benevolent triangle of medical care, the pharmacist finds himself at the raw end of an abusive process nobody likes.
Here's where you, the consumer come in.
Customers arrive at the pharmacy because they have been hurt or are sick. They have already made the trek to the doctor's office, lost a day of work, been kept waiting and charged a hundred bucks to spend 3 minutes with a doctor who hands them a piece of paper. Now they have taken the bus to the drugstore and are about to be appalled by the money they are going to shell out to a grump behind a counter so high it makes them feel like a three-year-old.
Pharmacy customers are not happy to be there. They aren't happy, period. Nothing the pharmacist does is going to make them happy. But, too bad, the pharmacist isn't all that content himself. He's been swindled so badly he's never going to trust anyone again. Since old people take the most medicine, the majority of his customers are old people -- cranky old people who complain about prices and ask the same stupid questions a thousand times a day. This is just more gravel in the pharmacist's shoes.
The collision between a sick, ripped-off patient and a tired, ripped-off pharmacist is predictable, and mean, as a cockfight. The customer grumbles at the pharmacist and asks some ridiculous question. The phone is ringing. People standing in line start clearning their throats. The pharmacist slows down, shoots a few withering looks, then doles out the pills. Sufficiently abased, customers begin to limp home -- finally. The pharmacist counts pills and waits for more abuse.
There are no test tubes in sight. No mortar and pestles, no hand-in-hand work with the doctor. In fact there are no real prescriptions anymore. A clerk in a pizza joint has a more complex job than a pharmacist.
Doctors prescribe ready-made medicines, often by brand name. Doctors decide if a generic can be substituted. The pharmacist just gets the right bottle of pills and starts counting. A pigeon could do the pharmacist's job. There is no pharmacological expertise going on in a pharmacy. All those nights of midnight oil, learning absorption rates of alkenes into mucous membranes means nothing now. That was just the price for a pill-selling license. The pharmacy school didn't breathe a word of this.
Neither did the pharmacy school teach practical skills the pharmacist actually needs. They don't teach how to run a cash register or catch shoplifters or even things related to pills. Pill identification for example. Pharmacy students can drawl the molecular structure of a drug, but cannot visually ID or name the top 20 or 100 drugs they will sell.
Of course, as years grind by under fluoresecent lights, behind a silly counter, the phamacist eventually learns all this. But it's all on-the-job and self-taught.
Then there's pill-counting--the most obvious part of pharmacy drudgery. Just how much organic chemistry is necessary to count pills? This is even more humiliating since the number of pills in a bottle are often counted by mechanical devices; and if they're not, it's a job a pigeon could do quite well. It's also something the old bag snapping about high prices can and will check.
Pharmacists are not taught to read doctor handwriting, which really and truly is bad. Despite the jokes, inability to read doctors' handwriting can lead to serious mistakes. People have been killed by script f*ck-ups and pharmacists commonly misdispense drugs because of errors in reading the prescription. Then they get sued and kicked out of the business forever.
Calling the doctor's office for clarification of a prescription makes the pharmacist a pest. The receptionist treats him as an irritant. The doctor treats him as an idiot. Should the pharmacist have any other "problems" with a prescription, he comes dangerously close to questioning the doctor's wisdom. It's bad enough to be an idiot, it's even worse to be a loathsome pipsqueak. The brittle ego of a pharmacist cannot risk calling a doctor every time he thinks there's something wrong with a script.