Pharmacy and Your Niche

What led you to choose pharmacy as a career? For me, it was a mention of "oh by the way, I am not only a chemistry advisor, I am a pre-pharmacy advisor" by a brilliant analytic chemistry professor, Dr. Anthony Harmon. I was just 21 years old, and I did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up. He pointed me toward pharmacy. I envied the quiet genius a lot of the serious chemistry majors seemed to possess. I was a more outgoing having fun type. Dr. Harmon told me a career in a chemistry lab may not mesh well with my personality. Well, let's be real... I wasn't an A student in his quantitative analysis class either. Pharmacy was suddenly on my radar.

I took the PCAT. Who knows what I made. My undergrad GPA was 3.2. Being female used to be a minority, but not in pharmacy in 1993. In fact at the time, being male was the minority. I was finishing my third year of undergrad and decided I'd apply to a handful of universities.

I had a couple of acceptances but really wanted the University of Tennessee at Memphis. I was told on the phone I was 99.9% in, so go ahead and respond decline to the private universities who accepted you. I turned down the schools and then received a rejection letter from UT. Guess i was that 0.1% eluded by the assistant dean. Talk about a downer. A lot of students do go the political route and a lot of acceptances are based on who you know, but I didn't until the rejection.

I reached out to some "who you know" types with my story and got accepted for the next year. So... I spent my fourth year in undergrad finishing a degree and biding my time. At least I did not have to reapply.

So there you have it. I remember thinking the pharmacist who worked in my small hometown had a large house. I didn't realize it wasn't pharmacy more than the sheer fact he had his own business. This is key.

Thirteen years later I realize you can make a good living in pharmacy or a great one in finding your niche within.

Have you found your niche?

The Most Hilarious (and not-so-hilarious-moments) in the Past 10+ Years of Pharmacy

This post has been long time in the making, and also a move toward a coming out of sorts for the Blonde Pharmacist.  It is time to just be me, if you know what I mean, so let's start out with a post about the past.  The most hilarious moments in the past 10 years of being a pharmacist (and not-so-hilarious-moments). 1.  Sometime during 1999, Keith Urban was living in the middle Tennessee area where I was working.  He wasn't a bit name at all, and in fact, in the Country Music City to make it.  (Make it, he did).  I worked in a small retail pharmacy with a fabulous technician named Kim and another pharmacist named Ladona.  Keith came in from time to time with his fabulous Australian accent.  Of course, I cannot divulge what he took medication wise, but I can say that he is indeed short, and was friendly.  It wasn't too much longer he sent in a driver...  he made it big.  This is a hilarious moment only because it was my only brush with celebrity while working.  Fun stuff.

2.  I was a floater for the same retail company and was working in a store one afternoon.  The best part of being a floater is that there isn't a lot of responsibility as far as the operations part of the day.  I would go in, do my job, and leave.  However, this one day, there was a man that came in holding what looked like a five year old needing an early refill on his son's albuterol nebules.  I told him he'd have to pay for them because TennCare wouldn't cover them early.  He was irate and began squeezing his son.  "Daddy!  You're squeezing me.  You're hurting me!"  He replied to his son rather dramatically, "Son, I'm not hurting you, SHE is!!"  As a twenty-something pharmacist, I sort of lost it at that moment.  "What am I doing a jedi mind trick on your son?"  It wasn't long after that, I knew retail wasn't for me.  I couldn't let it roll. I kept going with him, "I'm gonna have your job!"  He said angrily.  "You can have it!"  I replied.

If I can give some advice here it would be... learn to let it roll.  Don't lose your cool.

3.  JB.  The HIV positive homeless man that threatened to have my brains on the parking lot if I didn't fill his alprazolam 2 mg QID two weeks early.  Needless to say I didn't, and he was my last straw.  Good-bye retail forever.  I figured JB didn't really have much to lose.

4.  AG the former crack addict who kicked the habit for many many years only to die after shooting up again.  Some of the conversations we had were priceless in hindsight during a time I needed friends so desperately.

5.  Not a hilarious moment or not - but a moment where this blonde pharmacist worked for THE BLONDE pharmacist.  She was such a positive influence and hired me for home infusion with no experience.  Glad she gave me a chance.

6.  Who could forget the boss I had once who wanted to know what I was thinking once during a meeting.  The guy had more degrees than anyone I've met but yet asked the strangest questions.  My response, "Last time I checked, thoughts were still private property."  LOL  Seriously though, he sort of lost cred with me when a close friend and coworker was in labor and he stalled her for awhile to wrap up some things with her job and then took time later to brag about how he stalled her while she was in labor.  Gag.

7.  Who could forget the manager who threatened a punitive write-up in one sentence and the next began talking about Jesus.  Asked me if I had found a church.  So wrong on so many levels.

8.  Or the job interview where the pharmacy manager dove right in with the first sentence, "We'll begin our interview."  The next sentence, "Do you have kids?"

What are your most hilarious and not-so-hilarious moments in pharmacy?

How to Be a Better Pharmacist

Don't you remember graduating pharmacy school with all the hope in the world? Pseudomonas treatment options were on the tip of your tongue, and all those "older" pharmacists, let's face it, are SO behind the times. You knew it all, or so you thought at least. Confidence? Maybe so, or maybe an over inflated ego. If you attended a clinical type pharmacy school as I did, the idea of working retail was frowned upon. You were considered to be selling out. (I sold out... At first).

1. You absolutely must keep up year to year. Your education does not end the day you graduate. There's the boards, passing the state exam, and keeping up with continuing education. That window of time between what's printed and accepted by all to the newest guidelines should be studied. Know where to search. Be a google pro.

2. Consider challenging yourself with becoming board certified. If you fail the first time, take it again.

3. Be a team player. If you are clinical, work hard to treat dispensing pharmacists the way you would want to be treated and vice versa. The best model would be for most pharmacists in a department to be clinically trained.

4. Be tech savvy. Most health calculators are online or you can buy apps to help. I still can't believe the company I work for isn't 100% paperless. It's coming, and I can't wait.

Keep up... Because it won't be long, and you will see new graduates flooding the market, and you will recognize them eyeing you as one of the older pharmacists!

Management 101

Why is it more important for pharmacy schools to teach pharmacotherapy and kinetics but avoid teaching management? While it is important to understand how a reaction between Bactrim and warfarin will change previous outcome, isn't it equally important that a pharmacist manager knows how to manage? I spent hours memorizing classes of drugs but never once learned the rules of being an employee or a manager. I thought I'd go over those now... 1. A good manager communicates well. He not only communicates thoroughly and succintely in email, he will pick up the phone to schedule the more serious things. Emails and text messages should only be used for short messages. Anything serious in nature should require a phone call.

2. A good manager will not under any circumstances make promises that can't be delivered. Not only does this build distrust, it also gives an employee something to bitch about.

3. A good manager would never ask an employee to write up or monitor their peer. Again, mistrust.

4. A good manager thinks about how decisions affect their employees. If the employee is going to be deeply affected, a personal touch with explanation is probably the way to go.

5. A good manager doesn't keep the riff raff around to use for all the crap jobs.

6. A good manager isn't a manager obsessed with punitive action.

7. Remember positive feedback is more important than you think!

These are just a few of the tips I'd highly recommend a pharmacist manager begin with learning. Be fair, trustworthy, and logical. Care about your employees. Call them rather than blasting off an instant message or email. Don't accuse them for lack of communicating when all of your communications are short sentence fragments via email.

Walk the walk.... don't just talk the talk!

Pharmacy Drive-thru and the Demise of Professionalism

What do McDonald's and Walgreens have in common? A drive-thru. That's right! In my local city, a pharmacy drive-thru wait time can easily approach 15 minutes. Seems to me they are counterproductive. So for your reading pleasure, some links to drive-thru rants and observations.

I just want somehow for the pharmacist to stop trying to counsel me on new medications.

1. Someone got trapped in one.

2. Drive thru etiquette

3. Pharmacists believe delays and errors more common due to drive-thru.

4. Ban 'em.

Dreaming

I would LOVE to hear if you are a pharmacist out there what you would do if you could do it all over again. Would you be a pharmacist? Would you be a physician? I'm super curious. My own journey was a flukey one. I had every intention of going into medicine. My entire childhood was filled with whispers from my over-achieving parents. "You will be a physician." Yes, I sort of failed them, but I'm quite alright with it. When I see tweets about having to tell a patient they have cancer or hearing about my OB missing a lot of days with her kids due to births, I relish in the fact that when I sign off for the day, I've signed off for the DAY. There are exceptions to taking the job home with you - when I was in home health and carried the dreaded black pager - but for the most part, I've enjoyed my six figure salary and even overtime stints where I've made $100/hr. Not too bad. What would YOU be? If you had the opportunity to never have to work pharmacy again... what would you do?

Shivers, Zaps, and Shocks... Part Two

I've had over 200 comments on a post I had three years ago. Back then, I was super frustrated with the side effect from withdrawing from commonly prescribed SSRIs, etc. Has much changed in tapering down these meds for the patients I am in contact with? No. But, I have been able to share the experience with others and in my own case have found that the shocks resolved on their own. I have never felt that way again, but at the same time you won't see me jumping up and down for joy for venlafaxine or duloxetine. I have no respect for the drugs and when filling the medications will actually have some four letter words pass through my thoughts. I would like to hear from those that commented all those years back. Are the zaps gone? Have you seen it with any other medication?

Will Rite Aid Closing Be Another Loss In Our Failing Economy?

Several years ago, pharmacy jobs, especially retail, were a dime a dozen. You could literally get ill at your supervisor and decide to leave and have another job along with a nifty sign on bonus the next day. I'm not so sure that is the current state of things here. I keep getting more and more news stories of Walgreens buying up Rite Aid stores. Remember Rite Aid was the pharmacy that bought JC Penney's Eckerd in the hope of competing with the bigger and more lucrative Walgreens and CVS. I fear if Rite Aid DOES close, at least HERE anyway, things in the pharmacy market will become more grim. Instead of a pharmacists' market, it will become the opposite. It makes me want to cling to my current job with everything I have, and it's all due to news and our economy. Walgreens to Acquire 12 Rite Aid Locations

Rite Aid Feels Walmart Pressure (another reason I do not like Wal-mart)

15 Companies That May Not Survive in 2009 (Rite Aid listed)

You Lucky Pharmacist You

How are you doing out there fellow pharmacists in an economy that is slowing down? Are your jobs secure? Do you have any fear of being laid-off or losing your job? Do you feel content where you are? On the plus side, it's easy to see how pharmacists and other medical personnel will more than likely be in demand. People continue to age and grow sick. People still need us. Perhaps they'll need us more? However, I am reading from fellow classmates that retail pharmacy is taking a bit of a hit as far as hours the stores are open. I hear that even Walgreens is shortening their hours and therefore not offering as much hours to their current staff. I'm not for sure if this is true, but things are slowing and slowing.

How slow will the grow and how much will it affect us? I'm not so sure that we couldn't find something else if we HAD to versus my husband who could not. That in itself is a good reason to sit and consider how lucky we are to be pharmacists right now. People need us. Even in bad times.

Update:  Three Years Later

I have always wanted to do this and spend the time to tell you how the pharmacy market has changed over time.  Yes, we were right.  Now there are so many pharmacy schools and pharmacy students graduating that the jobs have all but dried up.  You can't find a job.

How sad is that?

How to Make the Transition from Retail to ANYTHING Else

You've finally reached the end of the line in retail.  You've had enough of the rude public, the non-pharmacist managers, and the corporate cuts.  You are ready to have an hour lunch (maybe) and normal bathroom breaks.  You are ready to feel a little more professional.  Sorry, retail pharmacists, you know it's true.  Yes, you probably make more money than me, but at least I'm not worried about my health.  (I was working retail in a terrible part of town.  All of the good areas were full with waiting lists of pharmacists ready to transfer out just like me.  I just chose a quicker path). The first thing that is entering your mind as I'm noticing on a couple of comments here is that you think a special amount of training is required.  Let's first think about hospital pharmacy.  You can transfer from retail to hospital pharmacy fairly easily.  Hospitals can train you.  There is a lot to learn, yes, but I was up-to-speed in two months.  I worked five years in retail, if that helps at all.

You will have to learn about the hospital's formulary, allergy list, and perhaps coumadin and pharmacokinetic dosing again.  You will certainly have a lot of pharmacists willing to help.  There will be no more jerks in line waiting on you to hand them their papersack with drugs; you will merely have a function to be a part of the team that helps to heal the acutely and chronically ill.  You will revisit sterile technique to mix IVs, chemo, and TPN. (I hope, though it seems the hospitals I worked in didn't observe this at all!)

And most importantly... you will have a life back.  No more driving home from work in retail and a customer follow you home.  No more jerks waiting until 3 minutes before close to get 10 prescriptions filled... all new.

I don't regret leaving retail at all.  I do regret losing the knowledge of some of the new drugs since graduation, but it's worth it for peace of mind and life.

I hope that helps.