This question describes something unfamiliar to me (perhaps because I’m not American) - but I do know my drugs (a career in development (CMC*) and drug licensing). Packaging is designed to (amongst other things) provide a moisture barrier, and packaged drugs are stability tested** at elevated temperatures and humidities during development. So no, I don’t think it’s that.
j
* - Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls - development, testing, manufacture of the dosage form
** - Pretty much what it sounds like - make sure it’s stable
American pharmacies are weird. Instead of selling prescription drugs in blister packs like the rest of the world, they use these little pillboxes, which I think they fill on the spot. I can see why they’d worry about humidity.
Is that really still the case (to any degree)? Every US product I worked on was intended to be dispensed in it’s original pack.
j
ETA - though the point is valid historically, I suppose. The question is ancient, and I guess there is no great motivation to change a pharmacy’s layout. So, yeah, good point - a better point than I initially realized.
Depends on the prescription. Every once in a while, I get a course of antibiotics in a blister pack but other than that, some prescriptions come from the manufacturer in a bottle that contains 30 days worth of medicine and my pharmacy just slaps a label on it . But other pills get counted , usually it’s the ones with variable dosages, where I might take one pill once a day , one pill twice a day, two pills twice a day etc.
Many (most?) US meds dispensed at a local pharmacy by a pharmacist are just loose pills placed in a small container for the customer from larger containers kept with the secure area of the pharmacy proper within the larger store. There definitely are things that are packed in blisters sold as a unit, such as a 7-day course of antibiotics, or a multi-day tapering dose of a corticosteroid. But those are by far the exception.
OTC meds are more of a mixed bag, some being sold as whole bottles of loose pills, e.g. headache remedies, and others as boxes of multiple blister packs, e.g. cold or allergy remedies.
The modern US chain pharmacies generally don’t have the raised pharmacy area. Some do, many don’t. It seems to be a feature that’s being removed as buildings are refreshed, rather than the other way around.
And yes, this is the oldest zombie I’ve ever seen. Noting that it’s thread #2153, there are only 2000-some even older threads in existence that could be raised. For comparison, now we’re just a few thousand short of hitting the 1 million [pinky to mouth] threads mark! Wow.
Not if the reason is so the pharmacist/owner can see the entire store or when delivery trucks arrive. Because while in most independent drugstores the pharmacist is either the owner or the store manager , that’s not the case in chains. There are pharmacists , one of whom is the pharmacy manager and a different person who manages the rest of the store.
Not sure I follow. My interest was piqued by @LSLGuy’s observation that layouts are actually being changed. But I have to confess I don’t really understand from what to what. And I’m not sure if you’re suggesting that whether a pharmacy layout is updated depends on whether a single pharmacist both owns and operates the pharmacy. (Plus as it’s late I’m posting on my phone now, and haven’t figured out how to type and see your post at the same time!)
Walmart pharmacy in-store is usually floor level around here.
The pharmacy I use has a higher platform with many people (I’m sure they’re not all pharmacists) working away.
I always thought it was for pretentiousness. This pharmacy has been in the same family for at least 3 generations. The latest family pharmacist looks about 12 yo. She’s nice tho’ and so far ain’t killed me.
The US is now dominated by two retail pharmacy chains which have slowly swallowed most of the smaller chains and many, many of the independent Mom ‘n’ Pop pharmacies. CVS and Walgreens.
30 or 40 years ago these outfits tended to sell mostly prescription drugs, OTC drugs, and personal care items like toothbrushes and first aid stuff and maybe makeup. Plus basic DME like commodes and crutches and elastic knee braces. They’d generally have a raised pharmacy area in one corner where the prescription-only meds were kept and the drug-dispensing workers worked. Who may have been almost the entire store staff with just one floor walker out in the retail area.
Nowadays they have greatly expanded the average store size and their non-medical and non-personal care stuff. They’re sort of overgrown convenience stores or undersized grocery stores with paper goods, packaged snack foods, toys, seasonal merchandise, batteries, office supplies, photo printing, etc. Along the way the prescription-filling service has declined in relative importance. As the stores are remodeled, the raised areas seem to be being removed. And in some cases shrinking a bunch to make room for more shelf space for all the other crap. They are also installing “nurse or PA in the box” mini-clinics for vaccinations, basic health consults, etc.
In addition to these two chains, over the last 20-30 years some of the US big box retailers and many supermarket chains have also added pharmacies (prescription dispensaries) and significant OTC and health-related products to their product line. These dispensaries are a far smaller fraction of that stores’ total floor area and sales volume versus that of the dedicated pharmacy chains. So the retrofitted secure area for the prescription drugs is not the commanding heights of the store, it’s just tucked into a corner or alcove someplace.
Overall, the licensed pharmacist as overlord of his store with his name on the marquee is disappearing fast. The US industry is rushing pell-mell the other way.
LSL Guy is talking about chain pharmacies generally not having the platforms. He says some do , many don’t and it’s seems the platforms are being removed as buildings are renovated. What I’m saying is that if the reason for the elevated platform is so the pharmacist can see the whole store , pay attention to the cash register , see if deliveries have arrived, make sure the employees are where they are supposed to be etc , chain stores don’t need the pharmacist to see those things.
I’m not at all sure that any pharmacies are removing the elevated area - I know I’ve never seen a chain pharmacy with a raised platform, except in one situation. When chain pharmacies started moving into my area, they would buy an independent pharmacy. Suddenly the place that was Joseph’s Drugstore on Friday was Rite Aid or CVS on Monday. It usually lasted a couple of weeks or months until the chain obtained and remodeled a more appropriate space within a few blocks.
When it was Joseph’s , it had the elevated platform , which I was always told was so the pharmacist could see the entire store. The pharmacist’s area was invariably behind the only cash registers in the store. And in those independent stores, the owner was always a pharmacist. And when the owner wasn’t there, the pharmacist functioned as a store manger. When Rite Aid took over Joseph’s for those weeks or months, the area was still elevated , of course - but when they moved to the building that was renovated specifically to be a Rite Aid , there was no more platform. And there was a register in the pharmacy area strictly for prescriptions and people filling up shopping carts with other items paid at the front of the store. The pharmacist didn’t need to pay any attention to the rest of the store because unlike in independent drugstores, the chain pharmacist has nothing to do with the rest of the store.
ETA it seems the reason that my experience is different than LSL’s is because chain pharmacies only started moving into my area about 30 years ago - I never knew them to sell mostly medical and personal care items.
Thanks to both @LSLGuy and @doreen for those highly informative posts. I may have more questions tomorrow, but it’s midnight, so I think I’ll sleep on it first!
Anybody want to discuss this? Seems to me that since warm air rises and warm air can contain more moisture, that the higher the wetter. (Neglect the microscopic difference a couple of feet would make.)
To the topic, the supermarket pharmacy I went to today did have a raised area for the pharmacists counting out the pills. It made them visible but wouldn’t have been of much use otherwise, at least for the reasons given earlier.
Pretty sure it depends on the specific drug. I get several prescriptions and they’re pretty obviously not in their original pack; and certainly not blister packed. Sometimes one’s clearly made up of pills from two different original packs, apparently because they didn’t have enough left of the previous batch and the next shipment my particular pharmacy got came from somebody else (same drug, different manufacturers, sticker on the container explaining that yes, it’s all the right stuff.)
I have occasionally gotten something that was in an original pack; and the cat’s thyroid medication comes in its original pack, though I get that at the vet’s.
My local one’s still alive (though the name on the marquee is the name of the street, not of the current owner/pharmacist.) I hope it stays that way.
It does have a platform. The building dates to the 1800’s, though, so I’m sure they didn’t just put it in – though they did recently create a separate area for a clinic.
There’s another cash register up front. Sometimes only the pharmacy ones are open, though, when they’re not busy. If you’re getting prescriptions plus other items, generally you pay for everything at the pharmacy counter, or at least I do; but sometimes people are only getting non-prescription, in which case it makes more sense to pay up front if that register is open.
The warmer air can contain more moisture, but the key here is relative humidity. Warm air has lower relative humidity than cold air, given the same amount of moisture, precisely because it can hold more of it.
It is relative humidity that dictates for instance the moisture content of solid, hygroscopic objects subject to the air.