CVS Vitamin Consultant

[WVUPharm2007]

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So apparently they are putting something called a vitamin consultant in my store. Some person with no real training will sit in a kiosk next to the vitamin section in a comfy chair and an iPad and give people vitamin advice.

Sure, they could just talk the pharmacist about the vitamins they don't need to take on an American diet...I honestly think they invented this position because they know we won't recommend that people take a bunch of vitamin B1 for no reason.

Thank god I work nights.

 

[wahaha]

When I worked at Walgreens as a photo tech I was pretty much a vitamin consultant. I just read the labels back to people and always referred them to the pharmacist. But I work in the medical field and know the limitations of my knowledge.

 

[farmadiazepine]

I was just talking to my fellow CVS overnight FS employee tonight, apparently we make the most money from the vitamin section of the store compared to all the other FS items.

 

[Lubeckd]

How about the people in the GNC or whole foods? what do you think of their vitamin consultants?

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I know they have snake oil salesmen at GNC, but I've never seen one at Whole Foods. Though to be fair, I only go there for Taco Cart Tuesday.

---

If I worked days, I could just see me overhearing some nonsense and lambasting them.

 

[diastole]

It doesn't really matter if you recommend against something anyway. People want to feel like they are doing something. I have told people that unless they have an actual deficiency, the vitamins aren't going to help with the condition they are trying to improve but they buy anyway. Now I see these products as a psychological aid that makes people feel better. Unless they go totally overboard, it is cheaper than a therapist.

 

[Lnsean]

So apparently they are putting something called a vitamin consultant in my store. Some person with no real training will sit in a kiosk next to the vitamin section in a comfy chair and an iPad and give people vitamin advice.

Sure, they could just talk the pharmacist about the vitamins they don't need to take on an American diet...I honestly think they invented this position because they know we won't recommend that people take a bunch of vitamin B1 for no reason.

Thank god I work nights.

CVS and Wags....

 

[Ackj]

How about the people in the GNC or whole foods? what do you think of their vitamin consultants?

I think being in a pharmacy, people may assume a consultant is more knowledgeable than they really are. They will probably assume they are a pharmacist even. At a GNC you're pretty much separated from anything that could be construed as professional advice. In a CVS, 10 feet away from a pharmacist and a computer that has a full patient profile, giving bad advice or something with an interaction could probably lead to a lawsuit.

 

[MountainPharmD]

Don't forget the "consultant" will be sitting there wearing a white lab coat looking suspiciously like a pharmacist.

 

[297point1]

Don't forget the "consultant" will be sitting there wearing a white lab coat looking suspiciously like a pharmacist.

I've seen photo lab technicians at CVS wearing white coats- that ship set sail long ago.

 

[MountainPharmD]

I've seen photo lab technicians at CVS wearing white coats- that ship set sail long ago.

Yeah but the photo lab consultant wasn't sitting out in the vitamin aisle pretending to be a pharmacist.

 

[297point1]

Yeah but the photo lab consultant wasn't sitting out in the vitamin aisle pretending to be a pharmacist.

True- location plays a role. However...I've known pre-pharms and PY-1s who have taken photo lab positions to get their feet in the door at CVS, only to learn that the photo lab technician gets a fair number of OTC questions; sometimes that pre-pharm or PY-1 feels brave enough to answer them.

Am I overthinking the white coat thing? Do customers ask medical questions to cashiers, the store manager, and the loss prevention folks too?

 

[owlegrad]

True- location plays a role. However...I've known pre-pharms and PY-1s who have taken photo lab positions to get their feet in the door at CVS, only to learn that the photo lab technician gets a fair number of OTC questions; sometimes that pre-pharm or PY-1 feels brave enough to answer them.

Am I overthinking the white coat thing? Do customers ask medical questions to cashiers, the store manager, and the loss prevention folks too?

Yes, yes, yes. I see it consistently. Once I had a lady at consultation that someone stocking the shelf overheard and attempted to answer. I had to intervene and let the dude know that it wasn't appropriate to answer a medical question being asked at the pharmacy counter.

On the other hand some managers will come back to relay the question to me, but I suspect most just answer the question. I always thank them for relaying the question to me whenever they do.

 

[vitapro]

I'm a vitamin consultant. I have a degree in dietetics and a decade in health food and vitamins sales/ management.
Not all of us are "untrained". Many of my peers live a very healthy and active lifestyle including using vitamin supplements. I for one would feel better taking the advice of someone who has a formal education and who practices what they preach.
Stop hating.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

They deep sixed this at my store, so I don't care anymore.

 

[npage148]

Are you a RD? If not I don't care about your stint at gnc and your AA from CC. You don't give advice and recommendations as a vitamin consultant. You point and say here is Vit D or let me go get the pharmacist. Just because you live a healthy lifestyle and waste money on vitamins doesn't mean you know what you are talking about

 

[Wheresmyaricept]

I'm a vitamin consultant. I have a degree in dietetics and a decade in health food and vitamins sales/ management.
Not all of us are "untrained". Many of my peers live a very healthy and active lifestyle including using vitamin supplements. I for one would feel better taking the advice of someone who has a formal education and who practices what they preach.
Stop hating.

The difference here is you have some education and training. These are people taken off the streets with no experience paid a little more than minimum wage.

 

[rph3664]

The difference here is you have some education and training. These are people taken off the streets with no experience paid a little more than minimum wage.

Exactly, and they could potentially be practicing medicine without a license.

My old town had a little hole-in-the-wall health food store (and it did surprisingly well being located in an economically depressed town of 15,000) and some people were complaining about how the owner never recommended anything. For example, one of them went in there and asked her what she thought about oregano oil for fibromyalgia, and she simply replied, "Yes, some people use it for that." I explained to them that lay people who work in places like this have indeed been arrested in stings for, like I said, practicing medicine without a license.

Having a registered dietitian do this would be a different story, and s/he would know where the boundary lines lie.

 

[Pharmavixen]

Since I left Shoppers Drug Mart, they started stocking a broad selection of homeopathic products. Insidiously, they put them not in a separate section labelled something like, "For Liberal Arts Majors Who Don't Understand Science And Their Hapless Children," but include them side-by-side on the same shelf as mainstream medicine products as if they were viable treatment alternatives.

If I still worked at Shoppers, I'd be getting fired, like, every day.

 

[clerkmaxwell]

So apparently they are putting something called a vitamin consultant in my store. Some person with no real training will sit in a kiosk next to the vitamin section in a comfy chair and an iPad and give people vitamin advice.

Sure, they could just talk the pharmacist about the vitamins they don't need to take on an American diet...I honestly think they invented this position because they know we won't recommend that people take a bunch of vitamin B1 for no reason.

Thank god I work nights.

 

[boriqua]

a bunch of people paying assloads of money for stuff that doesn't work anyways? should be a pharmacy owners dream

 

[zelman]

Since I left Shoppers Drug Mart, they started stocking a broad selection of homeopathic products. Insidiously, they put them not in a separate section labelled something like, "For Liberal Arts Majors Who Don't Understand Science And Their Hapless Children," but include them side-by-side on the same shelf as mainstream medicine products as if they were viable treatment alternatives.

If I still worked at Shoppers, I'd be getting fired, like, every day.

I just tell people who want recommendation on homeopathic products two things:

1. This has no chemically active ingredients
2. It will not cause any side effects or harm

I won't guarantee anything further. Will it work? Who knows. There are people who swear yes and people who swear no.

 

[Pharmavixen]

I just tell people who want recommendation on homeopathic products two things:

1. This has no chemically active ingredients
2. It will not cause any side effects or harm

I won't guarantee anything further. Will it work? Who knows. There are people who swear yes and people who swear no.

I used to be more of this viewpoint, thinking, who am I to mess with anyone's placebo effect. And I thought that homeopathic products were harmless to foist off on the worried well or folks with a mild, self-limiting illness who were determined to leave the drugstore with something.

But the explosion of complementary and alternative medicines in pharmacies has me convinced that those of us with scientific training owe it to our pts to draw the line in the sand. This is a huge and spreading scam, and there are sick people on meager disability pensions spending their sparse funds on these.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I tell people the crap doesn't do anything every day.

 

[Digsbe]

Aren't there laws against unlicensed professionals giving medical advice? I know it's illegal (at least in my state) for pharmacy techs to counsel on any medication or give any kind of medical advice at all, I would hope the law is similar when it comes to regular store staff or an untrained and unlicensed vitamin consultant. By law only the pharmacist was allowed to counsel or provide medical advice, interns are allowed to do so under supervision.