Thankfully, I never worked for CVS, or either “W” monster for that matter (Walgreens or Walmart), but CVS, AKA C(onjugal)V(isits with)S(atan), in addition to horrendously overworking employees, has now acquired Rite Aid’s files in areas that had that chain (which had its own set of issues) and at least 5 known suicides have taken place in this area. I think we all know that suicide is a complex issue that in individual cases usually has multiple factors, but that CVS is actually saying that the employees “disappeared” (!!!) is why I’m putting this in the Pit.
In 2021, a 41-year-old female Indiana pharmacist was so in fear of losing her job and destroying her career, she stayed at her overnight shift instead of going to the hospital for the heart attack she knew she was having - and she was found dead behind the counter.
Here’s a commentary from a retired Pennsylvania pharmacy professor. Yeah, I know it looks like it was imported from the Wayback Machine, and it does include a lot of jargon, but it’s worth a read.
The story about Ashleigh Anderson is a horrible tragedy.
I always heard, “The unwritten rule of pharmacy is: If you aren’t dead or dying, you work!” And she was dying!
Oh, sure, it’s possible that the outcome would have been the same if she’d gone straight to a hospital, or even been in one when she started having symptoms, but we’ll never know.
Maybe I missed something in the article(I didn’t read the 2nd cite you offered) but how’s is that any thing but a death from an illness? Not suicide.
Sure CVS were jerks and the tone of the whole corporation seems not geared toward employee health and safety. Maybe they are liable for her death. I hope the family sues.
I thought by your title employees were going in the break room and swallowing pills and dying from OD.
What “suicide cluster” are you talking about? Your first link has nothing to do with suicide and I tried to read your second link but honestly the author sounds like a crazy person and when he said he called a bunch of CVS stores to get their “statements” about employees from two different stores that killed themselves I stopped reading.
Pretty much the same response from me. Perhaps there is a real story here, and if there is, kudos to the author for wanting to bring it to the attention of the public. But this is not the way to do it.
Better approach, or at least here’s what I would do: read all your local media with care, consistently and over time. Look for a sharp-witted, hungry reporter among the bylines, and get to know the kinds of stories they like to pursue. When you are sure you have a story, contact them privately in a sane, understated way and offer to meet, with objective evidence in hand. Then let a professional journalist publish in a bonafide media outlet, rather than foam at the mouth in a random blog.
Not saying the author doesn’t have a point (I can’t really be sure one way or the other), merely that they need to take Deep. Cleansing. Breaths. and approach this problem in a way that is more likely to gain traction.
Reading this I took the opposite approach and read his last paragraph. It doesn’t get better, it’s medical technicians, robots and AI, oh my!
As pharmacists disappear, they will be replaced by medication technicians, robots, artificial intelligence, and drones (MTRAID) to the great peril of the health and safety of the public and the profession of pharmacy.
I stopped reading the Panicked Pharmacist article after revelations of “suspected suicides” which then morphed into people who “died unexpectedly”, of what, the author is just guessing.
But that’s the kind of tough, credible investigative reporting that comes out of “I have been told” and “I have been made aware of”.
Probably should have known better than to keep reading after seeing the ! exclamation points ! and ALL CAPS in the header.
I first heard 30 years ago, as a newly minted pharmacist, that if any pharmacy board allowed robotics with no pharmacist oversight, Walgreens would be the first to do it.
I also apologize for not posting a link to the suicide reports. Oops!
I’m sure this is an accurate story as it relates to the people involved. (WGAL is a credible source.) But I don’t know how widespread a problem it is. We go to a local CVS and I can tell you from personal observation that the people working in that pharmacy are flying at top speed all the time. I can believe it’s a highly stressful occupation which might easily push some people over the edge.
My oldest sister is a PharmD. When she was in college in the early 90s she spent a summer working as a pharmacist at Revco. She made a solemn vow she would never work as a retail pharmacist again because it was so stressful.
My daughter spent a summer working in CVS pharmacies in Target stores here. She came home every night in tears, hating it so much - she said the customers were so nasty, blaming HER for any problems with their prescriptions.
For the most part, I actually found retail pharmacy boring, except for the 3 years that I worked at Hy-Vee, a Midwestern grocery chain. It was a great job, until we got a new store director and it wasn’t. When the woman who to my surprise did replace me came in for a SCHEDULED interview, the director wouldn’t see her “because she was too busy.” (RED FLAG WARNING!) Later, when I moved to a city 150 miles away, there was a man at my church who at the time managed the local Hy-Vee, and whenever I mentioned that manager’s name, his face would squinch up in a look of disgust. He never said anything about her; he didn’t have to.
(At the time, “Revco” was how DJs and MTV referred to a punk/metal band called the Revolting Cocks. I thought there was some irony in that.)
p.s. When I did my retail rotation, it was at a hole in the wall across the street from dentist and pediatrician offices. It was amoxicillin all day long. Another colleague said that her rotation was at a pharmacy in the mall next to campus, and pretty much all she did all day long was dispense birth control pills to sorority girls (her words).
Retail work is very stressful. Add on top folks you’re helping, who may feel ill. Recipe for problems.
I am a pharmacists nightmare. No big Walmart, CVS or Walgreens pharmacy will work. I’ve tried them all.
My pharmacy is a home owned one. Where they have a level of autonomy and can make decisions about your needs. Much much better. I pay a $1 or 2 more for scripts, but I’m ok with that.
There has been controversy about independently-owned contraceptive-free pharmacies, and non-pharmacy personnel are confused as to why any self-respecting person would work there, especially a woman. Yeah, well, I’ll tell you why. NO METRICS! In other words, nobody is saying that you aren’t getting prescriptions out the door within X amount of time, no quotas for vaccinations (see footnote), etc. There aren’t any in my area, but I have definitely heard of them. Some independent stores are even cash customers only/insurance free, which is mostly feasible if they do a lot of veterinary compounding.
Years ago, I was at a meetup and another lady there, who was a manager at Steak & Shake, said, “How do you know so much about fast food? I thought you were a pharmacist” and I replied, “I am, but I haven’t always been, and the jobs are not as different as one might think.”
Which reminds me, there was a lady on another board who had worked at Subway, back when they actually sold food, and left because the stress (among other things) ruined her sex drive, which was not a good thing for a newlywed. She was thinking about becoming a pharmacy tech, and I’m not the only person who talked her out of it.
Footnote: Back in the early days of pharmacies giving vaccines, Walgreens did indeed institute a daily quota. Several pharmacists, in different cities no less, were fired for creating fake Medicare claims, and then reversing them, so they would meet their metrics. They were that intimidated by the whole thing.