My sister received her doctorate in Pharmacy (PharmD) from the Unviersity of California San Francisco. She currently works in marketing for a major pharm company and travels to europe about once every 3-4 weeks.
She received her undergrad degree from Notre Dame and went to the four year program at UCSF. She’s living the high-life in Manhattan. Not all PharmDs push pills.
Not all pharmacists have their doctorate.
Tibs.
You don’t need a college degree to do this. If you can’t read the prescription then call the doctor who wrote it. For all of the ‘personalized service’ that a pharmacist is supposed to give (knowing you, your conditions, etc.) I have yet to know a single pharmacist who remebers me. It’s mostly all CVS megapharmacies these days and they don’t know you from Adam. When has anyone here ever been questioned on their medication becuase the pharamacist knew you and understood what ails you? I’ll wager 99% of the people here walk up to the counter, say their name and get their drugs pulled from a bin.
Ther is no doubt that Pharmacists are highly trained people. They definitely know their stuff but I wonder if they aren’t a dying breed. Computers catch drug interactions and failing that why have a pharmacist your staff to maybe bring liability to your store? Leave it in the doctor’s/pharmaceutical company’s lap and just count pills for your customers.
I can see how this would be different within a hospital where whipping-up custom concoctions might be more usual but at a pharmacy? I find it hard to believe that insurance and quality control would allow custom made drugs at a CVS or Walgreens. It might happen I suppose but it seems silly to me.
We prescribe stuff that has to be compounded all the time. How do you think they get the tuna flavor in the script for your kitty? It sure doesn’t come from the warehouse like that.
No, your standard mostly healthy adult human doesn’t need much that has to compounded, but it’s actually fairly common for pediatric and veterinary patients. I would guess that a lot of adult human patients who cannot swallow pills for one reason or another probably have to get stuff compounded too.
Here in the metro-Detroit area, it seems pretty common that CVS hires a lot of Canadian pharmacists because (1) pharmacists in Canada earn very little relatively; (2) they earn more here; and (3) we do seem to have a shortage. This told to me by a Canadian pharmacist in a local U.S. CVS when I told her my “regular” CVS pharmacist didn’t show up and she said he was probably stuck on the bridge.
My dad is a PharmD (University of Southern California, '67).
Currently, he manages a pharmacy in San Antonio that specializes in long-term care facilities, which covers a lot of nursing-home residents, and group-home residents. Most of the patients he serves have multiple chronic conditions that require several daily prescriptions (sometimes more; I once watched him fill about 25 for one person at once, and I have no idea if there were more later) per patient. This is in addition to any short-term drugs these people need, like the occasional steroid or antibiotic.
He (and his pharmacists) are responsible for making sure that any drug interactions are kept to a minimum. Also, different populations metabolize drugs differently, so he’s responsible for making sure the patient gets the appropriate bloodwork so the patient isn’t being over/undermedicated or developing problems from the drugs.
Computers can and do catch drug interactions, and can do drug calculations, and machines can count pills, but there is no substitute for a human brain.
Robin
My step mother is a pharmacist at a hospital. In a hospital setting, a pharmacist is the last line of defense for prescription errors, and an advisor to doctors.
The doctors prescribe drugs, but frequently they are less knowledgeable than the pharmacist about what the best drug choice is for a patient. In cases where the pharmacist sees an obviously better alternative, he contacts the doctor.
The pharmacist occasionally catches errors in the doctor’s prescription. Often these errors are life-threatening. Even if 99% of prescriptions are correct, it is absolutely necessary to have a pharmacist to catch the few errors the doctors make.
Finally, the pharmacist is an authority on every practice in the pharmacy, from the correct way to measure drugs, how to track prescriptions, when substitutions are permissible, and even where rare drugs are located.
The pharmacist continues to study new drugs throughout his career, and requires certification for this continual training to remain in practice.
So basically, the job of a real pharmacist is to assure complete professionalism in the pharmacy. It is a grueling job, and the education is necessary, not just to teach encyclopedic knowledge of drugs and pharmacy practice, but to screen out people who are not responsible and sharp enough to be a pharmacist.
Although not all pharmacists’ jobs are as difficult as hospital pharmacy, any Pharm D is supposedly qualified to work as a pharmacist in a hospital, so the education is necessary.
Correct as it is written, but I have never,nor have I ever known anyone to tell the Pharmacist what their condition is. When I go to get a script filled, I drop off and pick it up, and other than telling the Pharmacist that: Yes, I have been here before; Yes, my insurance is still the same; My Birthday is xx/xx/xxxx; and saying “Thanks” after I check out, I don’t usually say much.
Is it common to talk to your Pharmacist about your condition, after you’ve already been to the doctor? It seems odd to me.
Mouthbreather, you should be talking to your pharmacist, yes. My mom is one, and one thing she’s made very clear to me is that Pharmacists know huge, huge amounts of information about drugs, and are highly competant people. Talking to your pharmacist is getting a very quick and free second medical opinion - not a bad thing for anyone, and something I would absolutely want if I were getting, for example, my child’s pills.
Should, but not usually able to. Most times I go to the pharmacy, the people are very very busy behind the counters.
And didn’t some people in this thread say the people behind the counter are techs, and not the actual pharmacist? I rarely, if ever, see the head guy/gal.
/Shadez
Yes, there ARE pharmacists who talk to customers directly - I’ve had one for almost 20 years. She goes over each scrip’s details with the patient and she’s very knowledgeable about interactions, new meds on the market and patient education. She’s always been able to discuss our family’s meds without looking them up on the computer. She works as the sole pharmacist [2 assistants] based in a medical clinic with about 15 doctors; perhaps she can provide this service because she ISN’T in a megastore.
I work with a lot of pharmacists.
Hospital pharmacists usually know way more about drugs and drug interactions than I do. I often ask their advice.
Community pharmacists often know a great deal about drugs, and often a fair amount of medicine. Most of their advice is worthwhile. I always listen when they call me. I work a long day and they have certainly caught mistakes I have made. That said, easily 90% of their calls are about drug plan coverage, warning that erythromycin reacts with everything they are taking, asking if I meant “double strength” sulfa antibiotic or warning me that they are allergic to every other narcotic except the one I prescribed and that they have taken for five years. Nevertheless, only a very foolish doctor would be rude to a pharmacist, and I always answer their calls promptly… the 10% or so of calls make a big difference to good patient care. The few pharmacists around here who compound are lifesavers when it comes to palliative care treatment and people with lots of pain and bad stomachs.
As an RN, I talk to the pharmacists a lot—those people know their stuff. If I have a question for my own personal knowledge, I call up RiteAid or where ever and ask for the pharmacist. If he/she is busy, they’ll call me back.
I think it’s interesting that veterinarians (and/or vet techs) do most of their own prescription filling. Usually, the only time animal patients have to go to a pharmacy is when the vet hospital doesn’t stock a particular drug and going with the “human equivalent” is a viable option. Outside of the exceptions, when there’s a screw-up with the prescription it is almost always the veterinarians fault and no one elses. The pharmacist as the middle man is cut out, which subsequently increases the responsibilities of the veterinarian and their staff.
Which is another reason why vets (and their techs) need to be paid more. But I digress…
My sister has her PharmD from the University of California San Francisco (the current #1 pharmacy school in the country - I can’t help it, I’m so proud of her!).
She currently works in Marketing for a major pharm company. And as someone else stated, pharmacists often know more about drug interactions than some doctors. Not everyone who goes to pharmacy school counts pills - she travels to Europe about once a month to attend seminars and speak to doctors. Norway, Sweden, Paris, London, and sometimes to Asia (Japan or China). It’s such a good life working for one of the pharm companies that her fiance left his job (cardiologist) to become the cardiology director for another pharm company.
I dunno, but to answer that, a quick story. I went to the Doc for uncontrollable puking. (Not just your everyday nausea.) Doc offers a script for Fenergan (Phenergan?), a highly effective, knock-you-flat-on-your-ass anti-nausea drug. (Good stuff!) I go to the pharmacy, hand my script to the tech, or cashier or whomever was on the front line at Eckerd. And proceed to wait behind about 20 retirees getting their 25 scripts filled. I had to run to the ladies room to puke at least three times, was getting really pissed off at how long all this was taking and thought to myself… “can’t these people see that I am visibly ill? How 'bout some compassion or assistance?” When one is miserable with nausea, one does not always think clearly or logically.
Just about the time that thought passed through my cranium, I saw the Pharmacist pick up my script, glance at it, looked at me (still pretty green at the gills) and snapped to her staff, “Clear a chair and let that lady sit down. Ring her up first before all these other customers… she is very sick.” She put me ahead of all the retirees and got me out of there so I could take my good drugs and sleep for about 16 hours.
Of course, the Pharmacist probably did not want me to blow chunks in the middle of Eckerd, but I really appreciated her knowledge. She knew why I was there and offered the desired compassion, pronto. Bless her and her phenergan, however ya spell it.
But no, I did not discuss with her why I was nauseous. I was just glad she knew why I was getting that drug and what that meant vis a vis my condition at the time. And I was really glad she got all those blue-hairs outta my way before I yakked on 'em!