A Foot in the Door

"Hey buddy, my wife and I are from out of town. She forgot her Diovan. Is there any way you can just give me five tablets?" he asked.

"No," I replied, "but I would be happy to call your pharmacy back home and transfer the prescription here. What's the name of your pharm..."

"How about if I just prescribe her some? I'm a podiatrist back home," he says, cutting me off.

"That's out of your scope of practice," I replied.

"I know," he said, turned away, and walked off.

All in all, I was a little callus, but he knows he wasn't toeing the line. Although he was a real heel, I'm glad I didn't have to kick him out of here!

Top Ten Reasons to be a Pharmacist... Reworked

Recently the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy published an article entitled: Top Ten Reasons to Become a Pharmacist. The original link is HERE.

I thought that list need the Crazy RxMan touch, so here is the NEW and IMPROVED Top Ten Reasons to Become a Pharmacist:

1. YOU GET TO WEAR A LAB COAT. What isn't cool about that? Every time you see someone important on some medical show, they're wearing a white lab coat. Plus they have all kinds of pockets to hide stuff like your Nexus 7 or iPhone.

TRUE STORY: One time many years ago before I ever thought about pharmacy school I was traveling from Salt Lake City to Phoenix. For whatever reason we ended up just outside of Kanab, Utah, at about 5:30 in the morning. The sun had just come up and we were headed east out of Kanab. There, walking on the side of the road, at 5:30 am, was a man in a bright white lab coat carrying a briefcase... out in the MIDDLE of NOWHERE. Now how cool is that? Obviously this man was of some importance. To this day I still don't know what he was doing out there so early in the morning on a highway road with a lab coat and briefcase, but I'm certain it has something to do with a secret government facility. So what's the point of all this? LAB COATS and COOL! I knew I had to do something in my life where I could wear a lab coat. 

Be a pharmacist! You'll get to wear a lab coat!

2. There's that whole "Ph" = "F" sound. No, it's NOT the word Farmacist. Oh no, no, no... It is PHARMACIST. Oh sure, word people will tell you it has Latin and Greek origins, but that's NOT really why it is spelled that way. It is actually because it looks cool to write an "F" sound with a "PH." Admit it, you know it is just Phabulous!

3. Most people study to be a pharmacist purely for the debt involved. The average debt from going to pharmacy school ranges from $100,000 to $150,000. I knew one lady who was repeating a couple of years and maxed out her government loans at about $200,000. Yep, that's why we do it. Not many people can say that owe more in school debt than they do their first house, so it's all about exclusivity. To be that much in debt is a huge driving force and why we have almost twice as many pharmacy schools as ten years ago.

4. To be a pharmacist means you can say all the drug names. To those uneducated in saying drug names, pharmacists seem like gods. Hydrochlorothizide... Carisoprodol... or even that nutty OTC med where they can make 10 million boxes out of one duck liver... Oscillococcinum. These are words that flow freely from the mouth of your local pharmacist like creamy butter on a fresh baked loaf of bread. Ah, now that's a reason to be a pharmacist!

5. You can have the coolest license plate in town AND you can afford it! DRUG DUDE, RX MAN, PHARMD2B (before graduating), MED MAN, DRUG DLR, COUNTER, PILL MAN, PILL GIRL, MED GUY, you name it! 

TRUE STORY: After graduating from pharmacy school, and the only time in my life that I ever considered getting a personalized license plate, I decided to go for it! I did the online registration and sent off to have my plate changed to RX DUDE. Weeks later I had still not received my new plate, so I called the local motor vehicle division to find out why. They said I needed a reason why I would want that plate because someone might think I was a drug dealer. I told them I was a pharmacist! They said, ok, sure, prove it! So I mailed them a copy of my license. And sure enough, I still didn't get the plate. 

6. You can have people ask you medical questions all day long! Why not?! After all, when you become of Doctor of Pharmacy, people will only see the "Dr." part on your name tag and ask you question after question about medical things you have absolutely NO IDEA about! I've been asked to look at every lesion, bump, bruise, mole, or calamity you can imagine and then drilled for medical advice!

7. You LOVE the sound of phones ringing endlessly! You're in love with the telephone. You're so in love with it you want it to sing to you all day long every day. That constant ring... ring.... ring... well, you just can't get enough of that, so become a PHARMACIST and the phone WILL NEVER STOP RINGING!

8. You would rather work all day without a lunch! Doctors, bankers, air traffic controllers, teachers, cab drivers... you name it, they all get to take a break for lunch! But not the pharmacist! You have no need for that pitiful weak human need because YOU'RE a PHARMACIST! Become a pharmacist and you'll suddenly have no need for lunch... mostly because you won't have time for it!

9.  Become a pharmacist for the fun patient interactions! You'll enjoy the thrill of being expected to do work which requires any normal person 20 minutes in five minutes or less! Moreover, you'll also enjoy the fun of being treated like a pill counter, label slapper, and check out clerk all for the salary of a medical professional! Become a pharmacist and you too can enjoy nasty comments like "Is it ready yet?" or "How long does it take to count 30 tablets?"

10. You love STUPID questions that have nothing to do with pharmacy. Become a pharmacist and INSTANTLY you're an expert with everything! You'll suddenly be expected to answer questions such as "Where is the peanut butter?" or "How much is a postage stamp?" or "What's this rash look like to you?"

Sadly, no list like this is complete without the mention of the biggest reason people once became pharmacists. I'm of course talking about the free pens. At one time, dear reader, we pharmacists became pharmacists because drug representatives would bring us free pens, notepads, flashlights, key chains, and all manner of worthless knick knacks. These freebies are gone now but it deserved mentioning because so many people became pharmacists just for the free stuff.

You'll Laugh at this Selection of Humor

We're Spoiling Them

We get e-Scripts all the time. We fill them. That's what we do.

It's kind of like someone calling in an order for a pizza to pick up, except it all comes electronically. On our end an e-Script is like a pizza order. "One medium size pizza with mushrooms" pops up on the computer, so we make the pizza. 

Except there's one prescriber here in Snootyville that doesn't get it. A few days ago she sent over several e-Scripts for herself. As is customary, we process and fill her prescriptions. She's ordered several pizzas, so to speak, and we're going to have them ready for her!

Today she came in to the pharmacy and I pulled all the prescriptions off the shelf that she e-prescribed for herself. I set them on the counter and starting ringing them into the register.

"Oh, I don't want these," she says.

WHAT?! WHAT?!?!?!?!? is going through my mind.

"Why did you send them to us?" I ask. I'm not happy, and it is showing. I personally filled all these medications and maybe I'm just an idiot for thinking this, but I feel like my time is valuable and she wasted a lot of it.

"So you could have them on record when I needed them," she says, defiantly, completely unaware of how it works on our end... I assume.

"You know, when you send over an e-Script, we're going to fill it, right? That's what we do."

She looks at me and doesn't say anything. I'm not sure if she's embarrassed for wasting my time or just doesn't give a damn. I'm leaning toward the latter.

I undo what I've done at the register and ask her why she's at the pharmacy today. She asks about getting a refill for a medication she didn't e-Script to us, nor bothered to even let us know ahead of time that she needed. In her head it is completely reasonable to just show up at the PICK UP window and ask us to refill a prescription on the fly, right during the busy dinner hour, without any idea or concern about the issues this creates for us.

I fill her prescription. As I'm ringing it into the register, three people in line are now staring at me. As politely as I can, I tell her we need to know 24 hours in advance what she needs filled, and if she's going to send over a prescription electronically, it would be nice if she added a note to "do not fill ~ place on hold" if she doesn't want it filled.

Her puzzling reply: "Oh, but I'm used to you spoiling me."

Euthanize me.

iRemember Gadget helps you take your meds

As we age, our body will start to break down in different places and on various accounts, which is not a good sign at all, although we can be thankful that advances made in the world of medicine has somewhat improved the quality of life in the golden years even when sickness and ailing health strikes. However, getting the right supplements would help a whole lot, and there are times when it can be rather difficult to remember all the various pills that you will need to consume at the right time. This is where technology comes and play its part in the form of the aptly named iRemember.

How does iRemember work? For starters, it is capable of sending out notifications to your smartphone whenever you or your family member forget to take their pills. It is simple and yet smart, as it informs you (or the patient involved) of the last dose of pills taken, as well as buzzing you with a reminder of when to consume the next one. All notifications will be sent straight to your mobile device or the cap of the iRemember itself, how neat is that?

Setting up the iRemember across different sizes of pill bottles or organizers are a snap – and it will also monitor the different times of doses that are taken, so that it will alert those involved in case a particular dose is about to be missed. Apart from that, the iRemember lives up to its name, being able to tell just when the last time a dose was taken as long as one presses the top button of the device, or to access that information via a free mobile app. It requires less than 60 seconds to set the entire shebang up, and you can even select the method and how often you would like to receive such notifications.

There will be future developments that will enable additional data options including a heads up before you run out of pills, or the sending of vocal messages to your family caps and FDA updates.

LINK

Today is the PHARMACIST Tweet-a-Thon!

Hey Pharmacists!

Please join pharmacists around the world for a day of celebrating their contributions to health care and our communities. Every day, pharmacists quietly and efficiently help patients in many ways and in many diverse practice settings. For one day, the world will hear about it on Twitter.

On Thursday, October 2, pharmacists will tweet about the real things they are doing or did that day to help patients, other health professionals, and their communities. While every pharmacist faces challenges in the course of his or her practice, this is a day to highlight through social media the positive impact that pharmacists have on their patients and bring attention to the good work they do to help patients live healthier lives.

Did you help a patient save money on their expensive prescription medication?

Did you catch a wrong dosage on a doctor's prescription, avoiding a potentially dangerous drug interaction or reaction?

Did you resolve an insurance issue for a patient?

Share your experiences with others around the world by tweeting them on Thursday, October 2.

WHAT IS THIS TWEET-A-THON?

A Tweet-a-Thon is an online event on Twitter where participants focus their tweet content for a specific time period on a particular issue.

On Thursday, October 2, 2013, join thousands of pharmacists across the country and around the world in tweeting about the real things you are doing or have done that day to help patients, other health care professionals, and your community.

Click this LINK to see what's being posted right now!

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

On Thursday, October 2, send one or more tweets from your Twitter account describing an action you took that day to help a patient, a health care professional, your industry, or your community.

Be sure to include in your tweet the hashtag used specifically for this event: #Pharmacist.

Tweet Examples (remember to keep your tweets under 140 characters):

I just saved a patient $78 by switching to a generic version #Pharmacist

I taught a mother an easy way to give liquid antibiotics to her daughter. #Pharmacist

I delivered an emergency medication to my patient in the nursing home at 10 pm last night. #Pharmacist

I answered a dr's question about the best treatment option for allergies. #Pharmacist

I spent 20 min. on the phone w/an insurance company to help my patient save money on his prescription. #Pharmacist

More info: LINK

The Busy Geckos

An elderly couple we had come to know as good patients and good friends stopped by the pharmacy on their way out of town. They had been here in the area serving an LDS Mission for the past couple of years and their time had come to an end.

We said our goodbyes and wished them well. They weren't in their regular mission clothing but rather were in street clothes. Sister Oldman was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Elder Oldman was in a Polo shirt. We were their first stop in a long list of goodbyes then they were off to the airport.

As I leaned in to give Sister Oldman a hug, I noticed the T-shirt she was wearing was rather peculiar. I didn't really pay attention before, but now it was very clear to me. I've looked online to see if I could find the exact T-shirt to share with you today, but this is the closest I could find:

As you can tell, the uh... geckos, are... uh, ahem, a little busy in their own way. So as you can imagine, I had to inform Sister Oldman that she couldn't wear this shirt for fear she might embarrass herself.

"Uh, Sister Oldman, maybe you should change your clothes before going to your next stop?"

"Why would I do that?" she asked.

"Well, uh, because of the geckos..."

"Oh, aren't they just adorable? I love these geckos."

"Yes, they are cute," I said. Cleverly, I added, "The geckos are also loving each other."

She looked at them again, this time seeing them "busy" for the first time.

"Honey, we have to stop by the apartment one last time!"

And they zoomed off!

Goodbye, Oldmans!