Wednesday, November 7, 2018

The Fire Dance of Pharmacy

If you've been to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie, Hawaii, you probably saw the "night show" with amazing dance routines done by students at the university there. If you haven't, be sure to go on your next visit to Hawaii.

Part of this show is the "fire dance" where various performers toss around sticks set ablaze with this dangerous chemical reaction.

These students earn money to pay for their tuition by working at the Polynesian Cultural Center. What you may not know is that during the time these fire dancers are on stage tossing around fire sticks, they're actually paid a wage much higher than the hourly rate because of the danger and risk of fire dancing.

So I have an idea. It seems reasonable.

If we as pharmacists are constantly going to be subjected to the taking the risk of working in a pharmacy without the necessary technician hours to create a safe environment, then we should be paid more. I think a good place to start, TO START, is by being paid the hourly wages of the technician hours we're allocated but not getting.

If your pharmacy is slated to get 68 tech hours a week and you're only getting 56, then the other 12 hours' wages should be paid to the pharmacists that take the risk from not having enough technician help.


A modest proposal? No, I'm actually serious. The stress of not having enough help and the inherent danger isn't really much different than playing with fire.

4 comments:

Rick L said...

Should do the same for floor nurses when they are short staffed.

SweetFaith said...

I agree pharmacy and nursing take a lot of risk when either of them are short staffed. Each putting THEIR licemse at risk knowing that upper management will act like they never heard of you if something goes wrong.

Anonymous said...

Management gets paid those hours in the form of bonuses based on their metrics.

Mark Raus said...

We proposed in negotiations that pharmacists get paid time and one half when working "short". Management said NO. Imagine our surprise? NOT. I wanted to strike over the issue. We did not.
Mark Raus
Independent Pharmacists' Association. (A Pharmacist Union)