Pharmacists on TV

[Sosumi]

I was talking with my brother and cousins the other day and the issue of professions depicted on TV came up. My brother's a lawyer and has Boston Public, my cousin's a social worker and has Judging Amy, my other cousin's an internist and has ER and Scrubs, and I had...?

Lately though I've noticed some pharmacist characters on TV shows. Law and Order the other night had a pharmacist who ended up being the murderer who was diluting the cancer medications of a patient to make money to donate to his church. Desperate Housewives has George the pharmacist who was dating Bree and later switched the heart medication on Bree's husband Rex after Rex said that "Classy and beautiful ladies like Bree don't marry pharmacists, they marry doctors..." I also remember a pharmacist character on The Family Guy on an episode where the kids' dads came in to discuss their jobs. The pharmacist was busy talking about the embarrassing illnesses that the other kids' parents had, and then the kids were like "cool! I want to be a pharmacist too"

Anyone see any other pharmacist characters on other TV shows?

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[ZpackSux]

I don'tknow about any Glamourous TV character pharmacists... I think John Wayne once played a gun slinging druggist...

But I'm curious about the TV and Radio Ads.. when 4 out of 5 pharmacists recommend something... who are these 5th pharmacists?

 

[ZpackSux]

btw, the chemo dilution was an actual case of a Kansas City or St. Louis Pharmacist... He made a lot of money doing that.. He replied..."Patients were dying any ways..." not exact words but pretty close. Scumbag!

 

[Rx4Life]

btw, the chemo dilution was an actual case of a Kansas City or St. Louis Pharmacist... He made a lot of money doing that.. He replied..."Patients were dying any ways..." not exact words but pretty close. Scumbag!

The comedy/movie "are we there yet" starring ice cube and nia long had a scene that had a very favorable portrayal of a pharmacist. One of the children in the movie loses his albuterol inhaler, so they goto the pharmacy, but pharmacist was off duty. ice cube goes to a party where he is told he will find the pharmacist who's dressed up as a clown and asks "are you the pharmacist?" he explains the situation and the pharmacist leaves the party and tells ice cube to take his place with the kids. Pharmacist saves the day in this one

 

[DownonthePharm]

I think its interesting that (almost) all pharmacist characters on TV/Movies are men, when the application stats indicate a predominance of women in pharm school. Maybe its because the characters are supposed to have been in practice for many years, before the demographics switched or its that Norman Rockwellish image of the pharmacist as a everyday looking older man/father figure type.

 

[FungManX]

Don't forget the pharmacist in the new fox hit show "House"
.. Its actually kind of sad because he's always just sitting in that little pharmacy in the hospital

 

[LVPharm]

If you squint your eyes, you can juuust make out the outpatient pharmacy on the TV Sitcom "Scrubs". If your lucky you'll see someone with a white coat on...I think that's supposed to be a pharmacist

 

[cjsdca]

Desperate Housewives has George the pharmacist who was dating Bree and later switched the heart medication on Bree's husband Rex after Rex said that "Classy and beautiful ladies like Bree don't marry pharmacists, they marry doctors..."

I've seen that episode. Don't get me wrong, but it was hilarious!

 

[ChemAngel]

it is funny you bring this up because during "dean's hour" our dean literally went down the line on pharmacist( or people playing pharmacist) that have been in movies/TV.

here is the list:

Its a wonderful life
Monty python
Saturday night live
Grace Under fire
a Seinfeld skit
desperate housewives


and a really old documentary.

 

[ChemAngel]

Desperate Housewives has George the pharmacist who was dating Bree and later switched the heart medication on Bree's husband Rex after Rex said that "Classy and beautiful ladies like Bree don't marry pharmacists, they marry doctors..."

I've seen that episode. Don't get me wrong, but it was hilarious!

here's what I say about that: What the pharmacist SHOULD have done is correct a life-threating mistake the doctor did. The doctor gets sued and the pharmacist lives happily (and luxiously) with Bree.
It is a common misconception that just because some pharmacist work retail, that they don't make money....or that they aren't as intelligent as doctors. When it comes to medications, pharmacist are the experts.

I'll stop now

 

[dgroulx]

it is funny you bring this up because during "dean's hour" our dean literally went down the line on pharmacist( or people playing pharmacist) that have been in movies/TV.

here is the list:

Its a wonderful life
Monty python
Saturday night live
Grace Under fire
a Seinfeld skit
desperate housewives


and a really old documentary.

The recurring pharmacist character was on ABC's Fridays (not SNL), their attempt to reproduce Saturday Night Live. That show launched the career of Michael Richards among others. I believe the pharmacist character was played by Marc Blankenship. He was always messed up from taking all the drugs in the pharmacy.

 

[dgroulx]

His name was Marc Blankfield, not Blankenship.

Recurring sketches and characters from Fridays:

"Drugs 'R' Us" Blankfield as a strung-out pharmacist who apparently samples his own goods liberally. Catch Phrase: "I can handle it!"

"Nat E. Dred- Rasta Gourmet" Darrow Igus prepares- and smokes- food items heavily dosed with 'ganja.'

"Battle Boy" Michael Richards as a hyperkinetic young boy who stages elaborate war scenarios in his backyard with toy soldiers.

"Dick" Michael Richards as an overzealous would-be ladies' man.

"Pitkinville, Montana" Rich Hall narrates footage of a fictional small town of tiny model people, usually at the mercy of household implements such as an electric hair dryer simulating a hurricane.

"Latin DJ" Bruce Mahler fills time between records by reading radio commercials entirely in Spanish.

 

[ApothRM]

At least someone got something out of dean's hour

 

[DrugDealer]

There's an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that ends with Larry trying to bribe a pharmacist to fill a script for his wife first (ahead of a huge line of people) because he's in a hurry. Of course, the respected and moral pharmacist is appalled and orders Larry out, creating yet another failure for bumbling Larry.

And, there's a Simpsons where they all go to some new super-center store and everyone scatters in a different direction towards whatever interests them. Homer sees the pharmacy and yells, "Woo-hoo!! Free medical advice!"

I enjoyed these brief pharmacist portrayals since they are so few and far between.

 

[ultracet]

Desperate Housewives has George the pharmacist who was dating Bree and later switched the heart medication on Bree's husband Rex after Rex said that "Classy and beautiful ladies like Bree don't marry pharmacists, they marry doctors..."

I've seen that episode. Don't get me wrong, but it was hilarious!

brie also cheated on her husband with the rph

 

[dontworry]

I think a character on the show "Family Guy" is a pharmacist. I forget his name though. Hes character is pretty nerdy, whiny and dorky.

 

[rxgal8]

brie also cheated on her husband with the rph

& then she shot him in the foot. I think later on, he was shown as a stalker. I wonder what's next for the RPh

I wish there was a show on Pharmacists, like the doctors' Scrubs/ER/House/Grey's Anatomy, etc.

 

[WVURxGal]

I think a character on the show "Family Guy" is a pharmacist. I forget his name though. Hes character is pretty nerdy, whiny and dorky.

His name is Mort Goldman. He has a chronic fear of knights, refuses to shower with the other Renaissance Faire workers, and met his wife through a video dating service ("I'm a desperate man with very low standards. I live with my mudder...*sneeze* Oh God, there's blood in my mucous!!!") However, I think he's pretty awesome -- he *did* get the Black Knight's car towed for messing with him, and he does not encourage steriod use! I believe he runs his own independant pharmacy. He visited career day and told all of the kids about their parents' horrible hemmoroids, and I believe he received applause. His hobbies include (and are limited to) watching classic movies while listening to Hotel California to see if they sync up in a significant way. So far, no. His niece is Jennifer Love Hewitt. He has a son, Neil, who is the head of the school newspaper and in the A/V club. If you vomit in a toilet, he requests that you flush twice: once for the bulk, and once for the remainder!

I swear I haven't seen every Family Guy episode 20+ times. And really, I don't watch at least 2 episodes every single day. Seriously.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

^^^ She really does.

 

[lowlyBSRPh]

No, you rarely see pharmacists on even the medical shows. I get so ticked when they show some nurse or doctor admixing something right at the bedside, or they just whip something out of a nearby drawer. BULLCRAP!! It all comes from the pharmacy, people! The TV programs never show a pharmacist character. No wonder most patients don't even know the hospital HAS a pharmacy. They think the nurses just pull stuff out of a med closet somewhere...

 

[thirdunity]

No, you rarely see pharmacists on even the medical shows. I get so ticked when they show some nurse or doctor admixing something right at the bedside, or they just whip something out of a nearby drawer. BULLCRAP!! It all comes from the pharmacy, people! The TV programs never show a pharmacist character. No wonder most patients don't even know the hospital HAS a pharmacy. They think the nurses just pull stuff out of a med closet somewhere...

That's sort of because doctors on TV tend to be EveryDoctors. Nobody on TV is ever an oncologist, radiologist, gyno, etc.

The TV doctor knows/does EVERYTHING. S/he is a one wo/man hospital, who works on cancer, coughs, and warts.

This is sort of akin to the EveryScientist phenomenon: just because you are a scientist on TV means you are an expert in EVERY science.

 

[Sosumi]

No, you rarely see pharmacists on even the medical shows. I get so ticked when they show some nurse or doctor admixing something right at the bedside, or they just whip something out of a nearby drawer. BULLCRAP!! It all comes from the pharmacy, people! The TV programs never show a pharmacist character. No wonder most patients don't even know the hospital HAS a pharmacy. They think the nurses just pull stuff out of a med closet somewhere...

That reminds me of a recent episode of ER where Dr. Carter had a young female patient who was on the fictitious drug Zarictal for her seizures (obviously a play on the real drug Lamictal). She had to get a kidney transplant because apparently the new but extremely costly drug might have led to renal dysfunction. It was so ludicrous the storyline since it was more a rant against the drug industry for pushing new drugs.

My big beef with the episode though was how Carter was googling for information and posting on websites to try to see if others had case reports about the possible side effects of this new drug he hadn't heard of before. He had Neelah looking it up for him. I kept going, where the heck are the pharmacists in this storyline??!!! Also, aren't all anticonvulsants since 2000 have only been allowed to be used as adjunctive therapies refractory to other treatments due to the febalmate problem? Of course at the end of the episode, the father of the girl shoots himself to donate his kidney to his daughter... I miss the days when ER was actually a good show.

 

[LVPharm]

I miss the days when ER was actually a good show.

I think I stopped watching that show when Dr. "Rocket" Romano got killed by the falling helicopter. The writing started to suck sometime around the departure of Anthony Edwards. It still bothers me that drugs magically appear in that caged backroom on that show.

 

[Lexian]

I think I stopped watching that show when Dr. "Rocket" Romano got killed by the falling helicopter.

LOL! I remember watching that episode and just shaking my head. So much for drama is ER. More like ridiculousness is ER. I really loved the earlier seasons too.

 

[NYCillini]

No, you rarely see pharmacists on even the medical shows. I get so ticked when they show some nurse or doctor admixing something right at the bedside, or they just whip something out of a nearby drawer. BULLCRAP!! It all comes from the pharmacy, people! The TV programs never show a pharmacist character. No wonder most patients don't even know the hospital HAS a pharmacy. They think the nurses just pull stuff out of a med closet somewhere...

Yeah I totally know how you feel. I'm also a clinical dietitian and I never hear anything about RDs on TV. It's funny...when they depict a coma patient on TV they never have tube feedings or TPNs running (Think Kill Bill vol I for example--she just jumps out of bed after a 4yr coma). I guess it's because most people have no clue what a dietitian is, what they do, and how much they have to know...then again there are so many different types of dietitians.

 

[npage148]

There was the episode of South Park where the pharmacist was selling the kids Dextromethophan so they could trip out. He was being helpful and coucilling them to get the pure DXM w/o the Guaifenesen.

 

[mrbob581]

Any one ever notice that any time a story about drugs or pharmacy comes up one the news we see the same old shot of pills being counted on a tray? Whats even worse is that my sister works for the local news here in west palm beach! the editor refuses to move away from the stero type. AUGH! How can we advance as a profession when the MEDIA defines us a pill counters.

 

[Sosumi]

I think I stopped watching that show when Dr. "Rocket" Romano got killed by the falling helicopter. The writing started to suck sometime around the departure of Anthony Edwards. It still bothers me that drugs magically appear in that caged backroom on that show.

Did anyone see ER last night? It's so annoying. Susan was busy alphabetizing the drugs on the cage in the ER. I've never worked in a pharmacy in charge of the ER, but does it really work like that? What about Pyxis? Don't the pharmacists have to check what gets dispensed still?

 

[GravyRPH]

Did anyone see ER last night? It's so annoying. Susan was busy alphabetizing the drugs on the cage in the ER. I've never worked in a pharmacy in charge of the ER, but does it really work like that? What about Pyxis? Don't the pharmacists have to check what gets dispensed still?

In reality, pharmacists don't really check what's dispensed in the ER. But, they do keep track of the medications and their use. Usually this is done by a Pyxis (otherwise, how would all those meds in the cage get refilled?). With the Pyxis you can monitor what is being dispensed and look for anomalies or inappropriate usage, but we don't get orders for ER patients and then dispense the med. Everything is done from the doc to the nurse to the patient. Things move a little faster in that environment.

 

[ultracet]

well it is becoming apparant that the rph on desparate housewives is killing brie's hubby....

i also about died when they were talking about how horrible it was to be dating a pharmacists... i mean what are you, some sort of republican??

 

[LBS615]

There was a pharmacist on the show House today. House went to the pharmacy in the hospital, and consulted the pharmacist briefly over what other pill is blue and looks like Viagra, so as to switch it out and fool a patient. The pharmacist was male. The show is really good for any of you who have not seen it yet.

 

[kristakoch]

well it is becoming apparant that the rph on desparate housewives is killing brie's hubby....

i also about died when they were talking about how horrible it was to be dating a pharmacists... i mean what are you, some sort of republican??

Oh man, it looks like the pharmacist, George, killed Bree's husband....wonder how long it will take before they realize it was him switching the meds and not Bree trying to potassium poison him (btw, how could that ever happen, she would have to be emptying potassium capsules into his food to make his potassium rise that much).

 

[pharmpoke]

has anyone seen will ferrell's new movie kicking & screaming? he plays a guy named phil who owns a "vitamin shop" called phil's pills. at first i was so excited that he was playing a pharmacist but they never refer to him as such and i think the store really is only a vitamin shop and not an actual pharmacy. still if there is anyone out there named phil you should seriously consider naming your pharmacy phil's pills. i might just do it for fun.

 

[rxgal8]

Oh man, it looks like the pharmacist, George, killed Bree's husband....wonder how long it will take before they realize it was him switching the meds and not Bree trying to potassium poison him (btw, how could that ever happen, she would have to be emptying potassium capsules into his food to make his potassium rise that much).

They are totally killing the pharmacists role. Yah, Bree would have to be drugging his food with lots of OTC potassium pills because she wouldnt have access to prescription pills. Besides, couldn't her husband tell? The potassium pills look a lot different from his usual meds. I'm sure they'll find out that it was the pharmacist or maybe he'll own up to it since he likes Bree a lot. We'll have to wait till fall to find out...

 

[xjmax]

Tell me if I'm crazy, but isn't Ned Flanders a pharmacist? Or, at least he used to be before he opened up his "Leftorium"?

 

[SomeGuy]

Tell me if I'm crazy, but isn't Ned Flanders a pharmacist? Or, at least he used to be before he opened up his "Leftorium"?

Yes he is. I wonder what his position was on dispensing birth control pills and EC.

 

[Big_Al]

I was talking with my brother and cousins the other day and the issue of professions depicted on TV came up. My brother's a lawyer and has Boston Public, my cousin's a social worker and has Judging Amy, my other cousin's an internist and has ER and Scrubs, and I had...?

Lately though I've noticed some pharmacist characters on TV shows. Law and Order the other night had a pharmacist who ended up being the murderer who was diluting the cancer medications of a patient to make money to donate to his church. Desperate Housewives has George the pharmacist who was dating Bree and later switched the heart medication on Bree's husband Rex after Rex said that "Classy and beautiful ladies like Bree don't marry pharmacists, they marry doctors..." I also remember a pharmacist character on The Family Guy on an episode where the kids' dads came in to discuss their jobs. The pharmacist was busy talking about the embarrassing illnesses that the other kids' parents had, and then the kids were like "cool! I want to be a pharmacist too"

Anyone see any other pharmacist characters on other TV shows?

There was a show titled "pharmacists: unsung heroes" which aired on PBS a while ago, I tuned in to watch it and enjoyed it but was disappointed to find out it was sponsored by Apha, i wanted an unbiased view of pharmacists personally. nevertheless, it highlighted the many arenas where pharmacists can work

 

[norx]

btw, the chemo dilution was an actual case of a Kansas City or St. Louis Pharmacist... He made a lot of money doing that.. He replied..."Patients were dying any ways..." not exact words but pretty close. Scumbag!

I remember hearing of this thru a member of faculty, he had said that it was this case that was reported by the media that led to the downfall of the #1 ranking of the most trusted profession. I believe it is nurses that is now in the lead.

Truly a asswipe!