Another dumb question but...

[drkingdingaling]

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o.k. i know pharmacist make good money and all but this reason alone would drive me away. my question is this, do pharmacist have to stand on their feet a lot or is there like a chair or something that rolls around (lazy i know)in retail pharmacy. i just have this awful picture of me coming home after a very long day of walking and my feet hurt.

 

[LVPharm]

We've got one stool at the store I intern at....and nobody really uses it. Well, if it does get slow at around 2PM, then the pharmacist will sit, but it is usually unused except when eating in the "kitchenette". I find it annoying to sit down for anything during the course of the work day. I need to get up to wait on patients, do computer entry, fill the prescriptions, fax refill requests, etc... The truth is, sometimes its busy enough that you forget you've been standing there....it's gotten to the point that it really doesn't bother me at all.

Now if you want to be a hospital staff pharmacist, I've seen those responsible for medication order entry/checking sit there for long periods of time...

You wanna know what hurts? 8 hours doing IV admixtures in the IV room of a hospital pharmacy: reaching into a horizontal laminar flow hood manipulating syringes, needles, IV bags for hours on end (no chair)....my back is killing me now! I think it's cuz I have to hold my arms straight out in front of me into the hood to do my stuff....

 

[jdpharmd?]

Yup, we have a stool or two in our pharmacy also and they rarely get used. Mostly I find myself throwing them out of the way during a particularly busy rush of RX's. Sometimes I just look at one and think "boy it sure would be nice to sit down" and simultaneously there are 5 people standing at the counter waiting to be helped. I'm sure if you really needed to sit down that it could be done, but it's been my experience that the stools/chairs usually just get in the way. Oh, I'm speaking from a retail perspective by the way. I'm sure that some pharmacist's jobs let you sit down all day. My boss worked doing "drug information" a few years ago and he just answered the phone and looked up and interpreted drug literature all day long for doctors. He said that he loved it...

Jd

 

[Triangulation]

Yeah, there's virtually no sitting in my walgreens pharmacy, but that's why i respect it so much. It's cool being a retail pharmacist because you literally have to think on your feet. It'd be even cooler when i know what the h#@! is going on.

It's amazing how great moments of calm in the pharmacy feel to you when you're used to bookin' around filling scripts all day. I love sitting there when not that much is happening and getting to ask all the questions i usually don't have time to.

When you move that fast, and interact with that many people in a level that for many is still quite personal you learn a lot of things.

I don't plan on a career in retail, but it's been a rad experience. The three head pharmacists are all hella smart, and that's reinforced my confidence. I'm actually ambivalent about leaving to work at another walgreens in So Cal, bc i doubt that it'll be as cool.

 

[StevenS]

yep, that's another minus in the pharmacy column. you have to stand on your feet most of the (looong) day. expect to develop some knee, back, and circulation problems later in life. some pharmacists wear constricting stockings, or do exercises to keep that blood moving.
a lot of times though when you're walking around and not actually just standing , it's not a big deal. standing in one spot is the difficult thing to do. it is actually used as an instrument of torture by many police/intelligence organizations.
there are many hood setups that allow the person to be sitting down while preparing the product.
one good thing about all this is you eventuall build up strength and endurance, which comes in handy(or leggy? 🙂 ) when you go to one of those standing room only concerts hahaha.