1. Signs
The pharmacy scene in Signs is pretty much like any pharmacy, except that there's no way any patient would ever let a technician blabber on like that for several minutes.
The part of the movie where the aliens are trying to get into the house is exactly like patients trying to get into a retail pharmacy before opening or when you're trying to sit down and have something to eat.
Pharmacy technicians are also known for calling people douche-bags.
And of course, it's pharmaceuticals that save the day at the end of the movie. Thank you, epinephrine.
2. The Sandlot
Friendships are crucial during the formative years, just like pharmacy comrades in our industry are crucial to any pharmacist.
The boys have special baseball terminology. We at the pharmacy use our own language... from the Latin on the prescriptions to our own abbreviations (like "NTBS - Needs to be seen").
"Been planning that for years..." ~ Every pharmacist has a secret plan. What is that plan? I'm not telling, otherwise it wouldn't be a secret.
3. A Christmas Story
The old man clearly has issues with anger management and denial. Had he been properly medicated with Zoloft, his son Ralphie would not have had such overwhelming gun ownership issues and delusions.
Any pharmacy sign which glows DRUGS in the night is just like "the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window," especially to a narc addict.
Membership in the some pharmacy organizations is just as disappointing as Ralphie's decoder ring.
"Oh.... Fudddddge..." ~ a phrase not unlike that spoken by many a pharmacist or technician in the heat of battle on Monday morning.
4. The Shawshank Redemption
Obviously, retail pharmacy is just like prison. Duh.
New pharmacists ("new fish") cry on their first day in retail pharmacy ~ every single one of them. Some even plead, "But you don't understand... I'm not supposed to be here!"
"Get busy living, or get busy dying." ~ It's easy to get caught up in the moment in the pharmacy. You have to stay focused on the big prize or die wearing the "Golden Handcuffs" that make you a prisoner of retail pharmacy.
Every pharmacist, stuck in retail pharmacy, pays for a crime he or she didn't commit... every day, and wishes he or she was tunneling out of the pharmacy with an escape plan to disappear and never be found. Just ask Miss Fuzzy Britches.
5. The Green Mile
Ok, again with the fact that retail pharmacy is like a prison. There's a theme here.
The wicked (The Authorities) take pleasure in tormenting the prisoners (pharmacists and technicians).
Mr. Bojangles is just like some of your patients that won't die. BUT they can be trained, like calling in their medication ahead of time.
"I couldn't take it back!" ~ a phrase often heard from pharmacists stuck in a career of retail pharmacy.
BONUS Movie: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Not in the top five, but high on the list
We all have annoying patients that won't shut up and fail to make a point.
We also have an annoying patient that thinks if they use the F word a lot they're going to get their way.
The Authorities often send us down the wrong path and appear as the devil when doing so.
I think my favorite part of any movie or tv show that depicts a pharmacy is how often the characters can just walk up to the counter immediately with no line and the pharmacist standing around with nothing to do can happily devote 15 minutes to the scene with no interruptions.
ReplyDeleteDrug Store Cowboy was as well entertaining. Matt Dillon as a rogue "drug seeker" that finally but not without complications goes to a detox program after ransacked many a retail pharmacy for his personal drug of choice, Hydromorphone. He meets his end as a nemesis wounds him-sure he is "carrying". Just before his run in, his former "druggies"deliver a cache of various Rx's(pre- Nixon) that he albeit illegally-transfers to a elderly ex priest. Entertaining.
ReplyDeleteWorld War Z. All of it, not just the scene getting albuterol from the pharmacy!
ReplyDeleteand favorite drug songs? mother's little helper. white rabbit. purple haze.
ReplyDelete