I figured out why US pharmacists are prone to accepting being abused...

Started by WVUPharm2007
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WVUPharm2007

WVUPharm2007

imagine sisyphus happy
Verified Member
Pharmacist
20+ Year Member
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...it requires visiting Canada.

Read what their organizations are doing...I've been reading the CPhA's press releases...they are proactive. They don't take ****. They don't let anybody steamroll them. Their hospital pharmacists are all unionized. They have balls. They carry an attitude of "they need us, not the other way around."

Which is the way it should be...and I've wondered why that is...

I may have found the answer on a trip to the U of Toronto yesterday.

BTW, they have this f'ing GORGEOUS pharmacy school. It has to be the finest LOOKING school in North America. I was amazed. I couldn't believe it was a pharmacy school. It looked like the corporate office of a Forbes 500 company.

But anyway, I toured the joint on my own a bit (if anyone out there wondered who the eff the dude walking around with the Adidas WVU hoodie on...yo...) I came across this university-sponsored student-written newsletter. Inside the 1st page was an extensive opinion piece about how useless their professors were. It broke down statistically how much money they pay and how much of their curriculum is expected to be self-taught. It was a scathing review of what they thought was a failure of their pharmacy school. And page after page...opinions that I'd never see publicly revealed in a US school.

And, as far as I could tell, the kid that wrote it wasn't thrown out of school. 😱

You can't do that **** in the U.S. If you publish an opinion that your professors are useless...you are reprimanded. You are taught to be subservient. To not speak unless spoken to. To just take it and STFU. Standing up for yourself isn't only accepted, it appears to be encouraged. Students are actually seen as intellectual peers...not a lower caste.

Being "brought up" in this atmosphere, I think, is part of the reason why the pharmacists in the US are so...mentally broken. Why we just take it...time after time...and never protest...never grow some balls and go on strike...never organize...just...take it...

...or maybe it's just a coincidence and I'm just a crazy hilljack...
 
i do agree, the problem is those willing to do something (see my other post i will make) are far less in numbers than those not....with the saturation occurring, Im easily replaceable if I protest something, there are plenty of people with loans, mortagage, etc who will raise their hand and jump right in


btw, i like toronto alot too, we visit 20 times a year or so, but I cant imagine living there, the traffic on those highways is so irritating
 
I've never worked in American pharmacy practice and can't do a "compare-contrast," but maybe the differences you notice are because of our single-payer health care system. Even though most pharmacists work in drugstores here, which is private practice and much the same (I imagine) as stateside, the doctors writing the prescriptions are paid by the Ministry of Health, rather than large private corporations accountable only to their shareholders. We expect the government to be accountable and transparent, which is 'way more the ideal than the reality, but empowering, I think, to people working in health care.

And yeah; our traffic sucks - we've got maybe 4-5 million people living in the greater Toronto area, and the highway infrastructure for 1-2 million. For instance, it takes me about 25 minutes to drive to the University of Toronto, and I can ride my bike there, zipping past all the gridlock, in 10-15 min.
 
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Oh man.... this scares me ****less!

There are SO many things wrong with U of T Pharm, including our gorgeous but entirely useless building (yeah it looks great but they hiked our tuition to pay for it and all of our classes are in the basement)... and both CPhA and OPA are completely spineless organizations that do a lot of talking and very little actual doing.

If our pharmacy education/culture is strong in comparison, any desire I may have ever had to work in the U.S. has been completely nixed.
 
rxlea said:
I mentioned this before but wtf does the APhA do exactly? Cuz it sure as hell isn't up to par with the AMA.
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They are good at collecting dues and sening out reminders to pay your dues. They do absolutely nothing for the majority of pharmacists.
 
Sparda29 said:
We need to adopt the attitude that we are NOT there to serve people. You treat the illness not the person.
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That's the exact opposite reason for why most of us are here.

I think a lot of the problem with students in the U.S. comes through a sense of entitlement. Like everything else in the country, most of us want things to be quick and easy.

The teachers who push their students to do better, whether by using the Socratic method (the right way), innovative course design, or simply treating students as if they're capable of handling advanced topics, are consistently reamed in their course evaluations for making examinations too difficult and not reading PowerPoints verbatim. The teachers who know nothing other than what DiPiro tells them and use the accompanying slide set end up winning Teacher of the Year.

Almost everyone will say that they prefer the first scenario, but then they punish the ones that actually try to make it work. Complacency and entitlement are a very poor combination.
 
Praziquantel86 said:
That's the exact opposite reason for why most of us are here.

I think a lot of the problem with students in the U.S. comes through a sense of entitlement. Like everything else in the country, most of us want things to be quick and easy.

The teachers who push their students to do better, whether by using the Socratic method (the right way), innovative course design, or simply treating students as if they're capable of handling advanced topics, are consistently reamed in their course evaluations for making examinations too difficult and not reading PowerPoints verbatim. The teachers who know nothing other than what DiPiro tells them and use the accompanying slide set end up winning Teacher of the Year.

Almost everyone will say that they prefer the first scenario, but then they punish the ones that actually try to make it work. Complacency and entitlement are a very poor combination.
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IMO, we're here to help, not to serve. There's a difference.
 
samurai361 said:
It always looks greener on the other side of the pasture... 🙄 😛

http://canadasshame.com/ unrelated, but every country has their issues and this is sad.
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So you're a vegetarian? You don't wear leather? (If that's true it's all good; however, if I may rant a bit.)

Killing seals is no different than killing any other animal. Seals are not an endangered species and the seal hunt has been part of northern culture for thousands of years.

In China, they kill dogs and cats by the millions for the fur trade and put bears in tiny cages with tubes attached to their gall bladders to drain the bile for traditional Chinese medicine. In France, they overfeed geese for the foie gras. In the United States there's the meat industry that abuses animals in the name of keeping Americans obese.

Anywhere you go in the world, there are much worse animal abuses on a larger scale than Canada's couple-of-weeks-per-year seal hunt. Basically, condemning the seal hunt isn't about animal rights - it's about nutbar animal rights' activists fund-raising. You've got the combination of (a) cute animals being killed in a photogenic way (the same red blood on white ice that makes hockey so exciting), and (b) a country that is small (population-wise) with relatively little political clout in the world.

So the Canadian seal hunt gets a disproportionate amount of attention relative to the number of animals being killed. It's called politics, not reality and unless every single person condemning the seal hunt is a tofu-nibbling vegan, it's hypocrisy borne of ignorance.

[/rant]
 
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Pharmavixen said:
If you make it to Newfoundland, try the seal flipper pie!
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Mmmm...I love flippers and I love pie!

seal_flipper_pie_1.jpg
 
Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain shares raw seal meat with an Inuit family in northern Quebec:
If you can imagine this, both horror movie and heart-warming; a mix of blood-spattered butchery and loving nourishment. A meal like I've never experienced.
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[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d8EymQPiqk[/YOUTUBE]
 
I do recall one incident when an article writer went a bit too far in The Monograph, that student newsletter you're referring to. I found it funny anyway...

There's a nice Wikipedia article on the building itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_L._Dan_Pharmacy_Building

try_infrared said:
There are SO many things wrong with U of T Pharm, including our gorgeous but entirely useless building (yeah it looks great but they hiked our tuition to pay for it and all of our classes are in the basement)...
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Oh please, have you ever had to experience the old faculty building? How about going from OISE to MSB in 10 minutes (the subway was faster...).
The only problem with underground classrooms is that you can't get good cell phone service, which you don't really need. The fact that wifi is everywhere, you can always hear the professor, there's a 120VAC jack on every seat, the seats are actually comfortable and there's a coffee shop on the main floor makes up for all of that.

The real complaint is the terrible placing of the student lounge. Seriously, anywhere else would've been better. They had real opportunity, and squandered it for the prof's lounge, but they always have to watch out for the above :laugh:

The equipment in the pharmaceutics lab is to die for. My tablets had poor friability 🙂
Remember: If you ever meet someone studying, working in, or otherwise interested in architecture, mention that the pharmacy building is a "Normal Foster Building", and they'll give you a cookie, or so it always seems.

They started raising tuition long before the building was finished. Waterloo's tuition is still 40-50% higher I recall (though cost-of-living is cheaper).

try_infrared said:
and both CPhA and OPA are completely spineless organizations that do a lot of talking and very little actual doing.
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I can guarantee you that things would be far worse without them. My chief concern is that the OPA is too corporate, but not that bad.

try_infrared said:
If our pharmacy education/culture is strong in comparison, any desire I may have ever had to work in the U.S. has been completely nixed.
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I'm sure our education is on-par with that of a US school's, if not better. Every school has its stupid professors and questionable subject material for a pharmacist (enzyme kinetics anyone?).
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
Club away. The hell do I care about baby seals...
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You mean you don't drive around in a car with big brown baby seal eyes for headlights?

Canada's Shame? More like America's Shame, since Virginia is where the PETA nutjobs are headquartered. The fine settlers of West Virginia were smart to separate in the 1860's.
 
SomeGuy said:
Oh please, have you ever had to experience the old faculty building? How about going from OISE to MSB in 10 minutes (the subway was faster...)
The only problem with underground classrooms is that you can't get good cell phone service, which you don't really need.

The equipment in the pharmaceutics lab is to die for. My tablets had poor friability 🙂

They started raising tuition long before the building was finished. Waterloo's tuition is still 40-50% higher I recall (though cost-of-living is cheaper).
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First and fourth-year students still have to run all over campus for some classes... because our fancy schmancy building only has 2 rooms big enough to hold a pharmacy class. And I would argue that there are several problems with underground classrooms... 8 hours of class with no daylight impairs my sanity and my vitamin D levels 🙂

Also, who gives a **** about the pharmaceutics lab?? The pharmaceutical chemistry students, maybe... not the BScPhm'ers who are actually paying for the damn thing. Most of us will never use one iota of what we learned in pharmaceutics.

Also Waterloo's tuition is only 3 grand more than ours... and they do paid co-op terms. We get fleeced at U of T compared to the other Cdn schools.
 
I always see you praising Canadian pharmacy practice, but really, the grass is always greener on the other side. The pharmacy organizations are made up of a bunch of spineless tools. The compensation we get on government prescriptions (seniors, welfare, etc) is a joke. The new laws being passed that would allow us to "extend refills" or carry out immunizations would most probably be without any added compensation (so more work for the same amount of money, really).

We are currently in the process of negotiating with the government because they want to take away professional allowances from generic companies towards pharmacies while at the same time continuing to give us a generous 7 dollar dispensing fee for every public sector prescription. And we fully expect to get screwed again because the organizations representing us are just as powerless as their American counterparts. Ofcourse, the billions of dollars scandalously wasted away on the supposed building of an electronic health care system by the mayor of the city went unnoticed.

Pretty buildings and a bunch of rebellious articles don't reflect on what's really going on here WVU.
 
zohaibab said:
I always see you praising Canadian pharmacy practice, but really, the grass is always greener on the other side. The pharmacy organizations are made up of a bunch of spineless tools. The compensation we get on government prescriptions (seniors, welfare, etc) is a joke. The new laws being passed that would allow us to "extend refills" or carry out immunizations would most probably be without any added compensation (so more work for the same amount of money, really).

We are currently in the process of negotiating with the government because they want to take away professional allowances from generic companies towards pharmacies while at the same time continuing to give us a generous 7 dollar dispensing fee for every public sector prescription. And we fully expect to get screwed again because the organizations representing us are just as powerless as their American counterparts. Ofcourse, the billions of dollars scandalously wasted away on the supposed building of an electronic health care system by the mayor of the city went unnoticed.

Pretty buildings and a bunch of rebellious articles don't reflect on what's really going on here WVU.
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$7 a script?!?!? Good gawd!!!! That's Cadillac in the states...

Nah, y'all seriously just have a different attitude. Talked to a bunch of pharmacy people. The atmosphere is way better in general. And at least your pharm orgs recognize this and are publishing polls and opinion articles about it. I wouldn't say they are spineless, I'd say that they are outmatched. Our orgs are literally 100% useless. They blather on about irrelevant **** that nobody cares about. I've at least read opinion polls about pharmacists reimbursement and how the public is against cutting it out of Canada. At the very least, they are targeting the right issues. Hell, I'd take that at tis point in the US.

And keep in mind, I am a hospital pharmacist, anyway. The retail part of the equation isn't as important to me - though I do appreciate how the practices are linked in some ways, don't get me wrong. From what I've learned in talking to pharmacists that have gone from US hospitals to Cannuck hospitals is that its night and day.

I did have an enjoyable trip, though.

Other thoughts:

I'm amused by the general Canadian inferiority complex with the United States. Everyfreakingthing is compared to the US. It's hilarious.

Going to Gatineau scared the piss out of me. Crossing that damned canal is like crossing the ****ing Atlantic Ocean. I drove one block into that Provence and I saw a stop sign that said something that wasn't "STOP". Noticing that I may be in way over my head...I took a left...I see a dude chugging from a ****ing bottle of wine in the middle of the street..I took another left...a Frenchman threw something at my car...took a right...I saw a bunch of French words that could have read "Death to Mike" for all I know...and I went back over the bridge into the fabulous land of predominantly English. I stayed in Quebec for approximately 2 minutes. I doubt I'll return.

Some damned ice soccer game in the Olympics apparently mattered one hell of a lot to y'all. I figured that out right quick. And apparently Canadians are under the delusion that I gave a damn about ice soccer.

Y'all call a toboggan a "tuque". What a pansy ass word for such a cool hat.

The entire concept of 2 dollar coins **** with my head like hell. I have no idea why.

Why the **** can't you people get ESPN?

There is a stoplight in Kanata where there is some form of a Tim Horton's on 3 corners. Each of them had people inside getting donuts. The density of Tim Horton's is like liquor stores in East Cleveland. How the **** are you people so skinny?

"Milk-in-a-bag" is the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

I kept asking my friend giving me a tour around the Parliament Building/Prime Minister's house area where the Queen lived. It really pissed him off.

People REALLY like bringing up the War of 1812. Y'all do know the US got everything it wanted out of the war and therefore won, right?

The amount of Poutine I ate may have shortened my life by 15 years. It's also fun to ask people "Where can I find some good Poutine in this town?" Hahahaha.

I saw the OPP ("Yeah you know me!") beat a teenager. It was some Rodney King ****. Nobody seemed to care or note that it was out of the ordinary. WTF?

I got in a car wreck in Ottawa involving 5 cars. 7 cop cars showed up, one ambulance, 3 fire engines, and 3 TV reporters. I think y'all have too many cops...and not enough ambos.

I tried to extinguish the "eternal flame" of Canada. I failed.

Nobody knows that West Virgina is its own state (I think I explained this to about 300 people), but I'd get called a "stupid American" if I didn't know that Oshawa was a commuter suburb of Toronto.

People in Canada REALLY suck at basketball.
 
Unions in canada mean pharmacists in canada have balls? Hahaha that's incredibly stupid. A pharmacist union in America will be a joke, there aren't enough (especially in the south) to make a dent. Paperboys in grocery stores need a union, pharmacists don't. I've had personal experience with a union and NEVER AGAIN.

Unless you want wages to go down, unions are a horrible idea.
 
renetto said:
Unions in canada mean pharmacists in canada have balls? Hahaha that's incredibly stupid. A pharmacist union in America will be a joke, there aren't enough (especially in the south) to make a dent. Paperboys in grocery stores need a union, pharmacists don't. I've had personal experience with a union and NEVER AGAIN.

Unless you want wages to go down, unions are a horrible idea.
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Retail pharmacists in this country needed a union a decade ago. Are you oblivious to the deterioration of retail pharmacy practice? You are aware that they are forcing us all to work in unreasonable conditions that put out licenses at risk, right? We have no leverage. That is our problem. What other mechanism do you suggest retail pharmacists use in order to gain leverage? I hate to break it to you, but its only going to get worse. They take and take and take. They are smart about it, too. They do it gradually. I give them credit.

I've also had personal experience with a union, too. What's your point? ******* managers can't fire you on a whim outside of proper procedure. You are GUARANTEED wage increases. The last job I had, the ****ers didn't give me a raise in two years because of "the economy". TWO YEARS. The unionized employees sure as **** got their raises. Any dues I would have paid for a union would have covered the $5/hour collective raise I got ****ed out of because I didn't have a collective bargaining agreement. When something unacceptable happens, you can get together and go on strike. Sure, you have to deal with bull**** like seniority and paying dues...but that's worth it for me for the security of knowing that my livelihood isn't resting on the whims of some capitalist ****.

My family was big in the union back in the coal mines. Maybe that's where I get the image of being in a union and having balls. Perhaps, to be fair, I should say, a union gives you the opportunity to have balls. Some unions today are filled with complacency and led by idiots. But being that I had a great-uncle that died in a labor strike, I suppose I do have a skewed view of what organized labor can accomplish. I've heard stories about how they quite literally kicked ass to get what they wanted. You may have a point, however. If they unionized; are the pharmacists in this country willing to actually get off their collective asses and fight such rudimentary things as reasonable work loads? Most of us are complacent ass pansies that just take whatever bull**** they throw at us and then anonymously come on the internet to whine about it. Oh no, I've got to make the payment for a ****ing BMW I don't need...can't risk getting fired...🙄

That's exactly what is going to doom us. Complacency and a lack of willingness to do anything about anything...and as I said in the OP...we are brought up to be like that...it's sad...
 
I know many retail pharmacists in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Minnesota and they have never complained about working conditions to the point you have on this forum.

The problem must be with you, its obvious that you represent the minority of pharmacists.
 
renetto said:
I know many retail pharmacists in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Minnesota and they have never complained about working conditions to the point you have on this forum.

The problem must be with you, its obvious that you represent the minority of pharmacists.
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Really? Do you actually read these forums?

From the first few pages:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=592707

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=704095

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=699724

If one wanted, you could go back the last few months and find hundreds of posts...
 
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And the minority seem to take out their frustration online. Again, I've spoken to many pharmacists across the country in different venues and the complaints you spew represent a small fraction of pharmacists out there. You truly are a minority when it comes to this issue.
 
And, by the way, a bunch of people on a message board DO NOT speak for an entire profession.
 
renetto said:
Unions in canada mean pharmacists in canada have balls? Hahaha that's incredibly stupid. A pharmacist union in America will be a joke, there aren't enough (especially in the south) to make a dent. Paperboys in grocery stores need a union, pharmacists don't. I've had personal experience with a union and NEVER AGAIN.

Unless you want wages to go down, unions are a horrible idea.
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I've belonged to a union for 12 years; before that, I worked in non-union stores. When I was not in a union, the following happened:

- I was fired for getting into a fight with the boss because I refused to wear a pink bow tie.

- When I went on mat leave, my store wouldn't hire me back because the boss decided he wanted to work extra hours.

- I had no benefits at all.

- No raises in years.

- No breaks - I worked a ten-hour shift when 8 months' pregnant, and my tech called in sick. I was on my feet the whole shift, no time to eat or go to the bathroom. I got home, went to bed, and awoke at 4 am in labour. So my daughter was born at 36 wks (on the upside, tinier babies are easier to give birth to than bigger babies).

With a union:

- Dental, extended medical (yeah we have single payer health care but this pays for stuff like shiatsu massage, a semi-private room in hospital, orthotic inserts, physiotherapy etc).

- Don't get fired on the spot at the whim of the boss.

- Actual paid breaks.

- A formal mechanism for dealing with disputes. If I lay charges against my boss under the Workplace Discrimination and Harrassment policy, I am protected against reprisals.

- Regular raises.

Keep in mind a lot of anti-union rhetoric is generated by big business, which wants to get back to the days when workers could be worked to death for the greater glory of the company (ie, "the good old days.")

If you like having holidays, days off, benefits, vacations, working less than seventy hours a week - thank unions.
 
renetto said:
And, by the way, a bunch of people on a message board DO NOT speak for an entire profession.
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Yeah, ok, chief. And a pharmacy student that has "talked to people all over the country" apparently does. As you can see, I've pointed to numerous pharmacists that are sick of the course the profession is heading towards on these forums. Other groups like The Pharmacy Alliance do exist. I can point to articles written by those in the field. Your arguments are nothing but an abundance of the logical fallacy called argumentum ad populum. It's when a person's entire argument revolves around straw men as a theoretical, organized group that agree with the argument. I.E. "Many pharmacists agree with me." Sure, that's great. Anyone can say that many people agree with them. Many agree with me. And I can show them to you.
 
Pharmavixen said:
I've belonged to a union for 12 years; before that, I worked in non-union stores. When I was not in a union, the following happened:

- I was fired for getting into a fight with the boss because I refused to wear a pink bow tie.

- When I went on mat leave, my store wouldn't hire me back because the boss decided he wanted to work extra hours.

- I had no benefits at all.

- No raises in years.

- No breaks - I worked a ten-hour shift when 8 months' pregnant, and my tech called in sick. I was on my feet the whole shift, no time to eat or go to the bathroom. I got home, went to bed, and awoke at 4 am in labour. So my daughter was born at 36 wks (on the upside, tinier babies are easier to give birth to than bigger babies).

With a union:

- Dental, extended medical (yeah we have single payer health care but this pays for stuff like shiatsu massage, a semi-private room in hospital, orthotic inserts, physiotherapy etc).

- Don't get fired on the spot at the whim of the boss.

- Actual paid breaks.

- A formal mechanism for dealing with disputes. If I lay charges against my boss under the Workplace Discrimination and Harrassment policy, I am protected against reprisals.

- Regular raises.

Keep in mind a lot of anti-union rhetoric is generated by big business, which wants to get back to the days when workers could be worked to death for the greater glory of the company (ie, "the good old days.")

If you like having holidays, days off, benefits, vacations, working less than seventy hours a week - thank unions.
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The bolded under without a union I don't see a problem with, the bolded under with a union I got WITHOUT being in a union. I will fight tooth and nail to make sure a pharmacists union doesn't gain strength. It's bad for businesses and it's bad for customers. Have you even seen the disaster that is the NY education system? There's no reward for good teachers and bad teachers take forever to get fired (it's been documented that a teacher who sent sexual emails to a student wasn't fired until 2 years later for the incident that he admitted to).

Anti-union people like me are pro-business and pro-individual. It's the pro-union people that don't care about the patients or the pharmacists that work with them.

Keep in mind this all happened around the time I was 16-17 but when I was in high school I worked as a cashier for a local supermarket so I could have some more money to buy books and enjoy college. However, the supermarket wouldn't hire me unless I joined this stupid union that claimed to "protect the rights of employees in the grocery business". It was absolute bull****, they took a huge amount out of my paycheck every month for union dues so not only was I paying into taxes and social security but I was paying into this stupid union that I had no choice into joining. Not once during those two years did I receive a raise, even though I was employee of the month 5 times (something I couldn't care less about but I'm trying to make a point), breaks were limited and not paid, and I got NO BENEFITS. WHAT DID I GAIN BY JOINING THIS UNION?! Absolutely nothing except for the fact that I could half ass do my job and not get fired for it. I stopped paying into the union and I quit a month later only to do the math that the union took away enough money that would have paid for my books my freshman year and some books my sophomore year of college. But unions are a good thing? :laugh:

Maybe it's a different situation in Canada but I would rather die or go to another profession than see pharmacy go the way of unionizing in America. It would be destructive to you guys (american pharmacists) and to the patients.

EDIT: And WVU, I could say the exact same thing to you. What's your point? A majority of pharmacists that I've met have no problems with working conditions and don't support unions, this is a fact. You are simply in the minority.
 
renetto said:
Anti-union people like me are pro-business and pro-individual. It's the pro-union people that don't care about the patients or the pharmacists that work with them.
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Yes, because its the evil unions that are encouraging polypharmacy by giving people gift cards for transferring scripts between God knows how many pharmacies. And its the unions that are encouraging such ridiculous things as central fill...and drive-thrus...

Keep in mind this all happened around the time I was 16-17 but when I was in high school I worked as a cashier for a local supermarket so I could have some more money to buy books and enjoy college. However, the supermarket wouldn't hire me unless I joined this stupid union that claimed to "protect the rights of employees in the grocery business". It was absolute bull****, they took a huge amount out of my paycheck every month for union dues so not only was I paying into taxes and social security but I was paying into this stupid union that I had no choice into joining. Not once during those two years did I receive a raise, even though I was employee of the month 5 times (something I couldn't care less about but I'm trying to make a point), breaks were limited and not paid, and I got NO BENEFITS. WHAT DID I GAIN BY JOINING THIS UNION?! Absolutely nothing except for the fact that I could half ass do my job and not get fired for it. I stopped paying into the union and I quit a month later only to do the math that the union took away enough money that would have paid for my books my freshman year and some books my sophomore year of college. But unions are a good thing? :laugh:
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Unions are for people in CAREERS. I wouldn't doubt that a throw away job like bag boy at Krogers would result in getting little out of a union. The UCFW isn't exactly kind to those lower on the totem pole. Now go ask the people that have been there for 20 years what its like. They get guaranteed healthcare and job protection. The great flaw in captialism is the development of economic leverage by the wealth class. Unions are a way to curtail this. They need to be encouraged at points in labor markets when workers' rights and dignity are beginning to decay. That time is right now in pharmacy. If you want to think like Ayn Rand and believe that the CVS' and Walgreen's of the world are going to treat pharmacists like gold when they get more of an upper hand as a surplus develops...more power to you, I guess...other people will be trying to protect you. I hope, anyway. Complacency is our biggest enemy. They need us...not the other way around. I wish we started to act like it.



EDIT: And WVU, I could say the exact same thing to you.
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No you couldn't.

What's your point?
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You're making **** up. There hasn't been a really good academic study of job satisfaction for a while. The best you can do are web polls. And those arent' reliable. So how you know "most pharmacists" are honky dory with the direction pharmacy practice is going is beyond me. You rely off of what your perception is and not even something tangential to objective. At least I can show you the posts, organizations, and articles in trade magazine that corroborate my stance. Clearly, the intellectuals of the profession are concerned, anyway. As, in my opinion, they should be. I suppose the idiot at CVS that does as little as possible , just wants a paycheck, and has the inability to conceptualize the future as these corporate interests gain more and more power wouldn't care. I do suppose the apathetic would agree with you...everything is fiiiiiine...

A majority of pharmacists that I've met have no problems with working conditions and don't support unions, this is a fact. You are simply in the minority.
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Again...anecdotes. You aren't allowed to just say that you talked to some random people and proclaim that you know how an entire profession thinks and that the opposing view is "in the minority."
 
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Besides with the demand of pharmacists in the southern states of the United States, a union would hurt wages for those pharmacists who may want to bank on the increase due to demand.


Pharmacy becoming a unionized monopoly is NOT the way to do. You should do some research on NYC schools and how terrible they are run compared to most schools. If a union can hurt competition and not reward hard word in the teaching industry, it's very likely to do the same for pharmacy.
 
renetto said:
Besides with the demand of pharmacists in the southern states of the United States, a union would hurt wages for those pharmacists who may want to bank on the increase due to demand.


Pharmacy becoming a unionized monopoly is NOT the way to do. You should do some research on NYC schools and how terrible they are run compared to most schools. If a union can hurt competition and not reward hard word in the teaching industry, it's very likely to do the same for pharmacy.
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So... without a union, how can we pharmacists go on strike if we don't like conditions or pay. Think about it, if all pharmacists go on strike, we could cause an insane amount of havoc.
 
Sparda29 said:
So... without a union, how can we pharmacists go on strike if we don't like conditions or pay. Think about it, if all pharmacists go on strike, we could cause an insane amount of havoc.
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Ah, I get it. It's all about you and not the patient. Who cares about patients getting their medications when I can't get 5 more minutes on my lunch break. Then fine, go ahead. Start your little union so the non union pharmacies can flourish where you guys can't. You guys will be the NYC subway of transportation or a laughing stock...same thing.

Please tell me you don't plan on owning your own business one day. Please!
 
renetto said:
Ah, I get it. It's all about you and not the patient. Who cares about patients getting their medications when I can't get 5 more minutes on my lunch break. Then fine, go ahead. Start your little union so the non union pharmacies can flourish where you guys can't. You guys will be the NYC subway of transportation or a laughing stock...same thing.

Please tell me you don't plan on owning your own business one day. Please!
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I'd wager that a few days without pharmacists in a single chain in a few markets would cause much less harm than the corporations do by encouraging in every market country-wide: polypharmacy, higher and higher script counts, high degree of distractions from being expected to multitask, having no breaks, working long hours, the gradual decrease in allowable technician help, etc, etc. It is ridiculous to think that everything the corporation want is automatically positive for patient care. Everything they do is about maximum profit as allowable under the law without regard to any ethical standards.

And if he owned his own business, why would he go on strike?
 
renetto said:
Besides with the demand of pharmacists in the southern states of the United States, a union would hurt wages for those pharmacists who may want to bank on the increase due to demand
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There's no shortage in the south. I know because I live in the south, and I'm looking for a job throughout the southern states. I'm not banking on a wage increase, because wages will always be lower here due to a lower cost of living.
 
rphello said:
There's no shortage in the south. I know because I live in the south, and I'm looking for a job throughout the southern states. I'm not banking on a wage increase, because wages will always be lower here due to a lower cost of living.
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I have the names and numbers of pharmacies in east Texas and west pf Houston that are looking for pharmacists and one near Dallas that shut down because no pharmacists. Texas is still considered "the south" right?
 
renetto said:
I have the names and numbers of pharmacies in east Texas and west pf Houston that are looking for pharmacists and one near Dallas that shut down because no pharmacists. Texas is still considered "the south" right?
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Texas might as well be its own country. I have no idea about Texas, so I'll take your word. I was referring to the southeast. We're mired in malaise around here.
 
renetto said:
Ah, I get it. It's all about you and not the patient. Who cares about patients getting their medications when I can't get 5 more minutes on my lunch break. Then fine, go ahead. Start your little union so the non union pharmacies can flourish where you guys can't. You guys will be the NYC subway of transportation or a laughing stock...same thing.

Please tell me you don't plan on owning your own business one day. Please!
Click to expand...

Yes, it's all about me.

NYC Subway is the laughing stock of the transportation world? The same NYC subway that has... 229 miles of routes, 656 miles of revenue track, and averages 5,225,675 riders per day. I remember when the bus drivers were about to go on strike. Everyone was freaking out because those who didn't have cars wouldn't be able to get to work, same for low income students who wouldn't be able to go to school. That's the type of havoc that unions can wreak, and we can do that as pharmacists. Let's see how long customers go without their medications before the ERs start getting flooded, the companies would be FORCED to give into our demands.

Company tells you they don't like your Extracare scan numbers, **** you, talk to my union. Not flavoring enough Rxs, **** you, talk to my union. Only made 15% PCI calls, **** you, talk to the union.
 
Sparda29 said:
NYC Subway is the laughing stock of the transportation world? The same NYC subway that has... 229 miles of routes, 656 miles of revenue track, and averages 5,225,675 riders per day.
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...and started a strike a couple of years ago only to have the union president arrested.

We're talking money and economics here, not industrial achievement. Stay on topic.
 
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Sparda29 said:
Yes, it's all about me.

NYC Subway is the laughing stock of the transportation world? The same NYC subway that has... 229 miles of routes, 656 miles of revenue track, and averages 5,225,675 riders per day. I remember when the bus drivers were about to go on strike. Everyone was freaking out because those who didn't have cars wouldn't be able to get to work, same for low income students who wouldn't be able to go to school. That's the type of havoc that unions can wreak, and we can do that as pharmacists. Let's see how long customers go without their medications before the ERs start getting flooded, the companies would be FORCED to give into our demands.

Company tells you they don't like your Extracare scan numbers, **** you, talk to my union. Not flavoring enough Rxs, **** you, talk to my union. Only made 15% PCI calls, **** you, talk to the union.
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Ah yes, the edit without acknowledging it. Classy.

Anyway, this is outrageous and something I would fight tooth and nail to make sure doesn't happen. Talk to the union if you aren't filling enough prescriptions? Are you kidding me? I should be able to fire any pharmacist for not being productive and reward the ones for being great.






This is what you union people don't understand: there is no incentive to work hard in a union. If you thought patients were angry bitter rude people, just wait until unions creep their way into pharmacy. This is bad for you and the patients and I feel very sorry for any pharmacist who joins or supports unionizing pharmacy. It will be the end of the most trusted profession in America.
 
renetto said:
Ah yes, the edit without acknowledging it. Classy.

Anyway, this is outrageous and something I would fight tooth and nail to make sure doesn't happen. Talk to the union if you aren't filling enough prescriptions? Are you kidding me? I should be able to fire any pharmacist for not being productive and reward the ones for being great.






This is what you union people don't understand: there is no incentive to work hard in a union. If you thought patients were angry bitter rude people, just wait until unions creep their way into pharmacy. This is bad for you and the patients and I feel very sorry for any pharmacist who joins or supports unionizing pharmacy. It will be the end of the most trusted profession in America.
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What are you talking about? Unions are great! They don't hurt the industry any. Just look what UAW did for us!

Signed,
The Automotive Industry
 
renetto said:
This is what you union people don't understand: there is no incentive to work hard in a union. If you thought patients were angry bitter rude people, just wait until unions creep their way into pharmacy. This is bad for you and the patients and I feel very sorry for any pharmacist who joins or supports unionizing pharmacy. It will be the end of the most trusted profession in America.
Click to expand...

Hmm, I thought the objective was to get us more pay for less work and NOT work hard.
 
Sparda29 said:
Hmm, I thought the objective was to get us more pay for less work and NOT work hard.
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Why do you deserve that? Why should the consumer pay money into a business that pays its employees more to do less?

This is the perfect example of why unionized pharmacy will fail. Patients are not stupid, once they realize that their pharmacy is charging more for their prescriptions while they get less effort from a pharmacist then they will go elsewhere. Why else is the USPS losing business to FedEx and UPS?



EDIT: And don't forget that pharmacy wages are high, the technique that the auto industry was too afraid to try will easily work in our field since we don't have $7.25 an hour pharmacists. What would stop CVS or Walgreens from saying "Oh! You wanna go on strike? Fine! You're all fired, we've got some nonunion pharmacists that are willing to work for less than your demanded wages. Good luck finding a job".
 
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