Pharmacist Patient interactions

[Nikolar23]

I am going to be a P1 student this fall 17' and i am interested in doing an area of pharmacy with more doctor/patient interactions. Which area of pharmacy utilize this? I currently work in an inpatient pharmacy and i cant see myself just sitting at a desk all day and verifying orders. I tried to shadow an ped RPh and they did the same thing. If someone can explain which area would be utilizing patient counseling with physicians or similar tasks, that would be great. Basically i want to find an area in pharmacy that is different each day to keep it interesting. Iv worked at at CVS before and hated it, do not like the retail side even if there is more patient interaction, too much being yelled at by patients, and dealing with dumb insurances.

thanks

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[Sine Cura]

CVS

 

[steveysmith54]

Different each day, huh?
Research "ambulatory care pharmacist" if you want most pt interactions. But, def won't be different each day. Kinda hard to achieve that. If you work retail as posted above you may run into a different type of an a-hole each day.

 

[Nikolar23]

CVS

I feel when you work retail, you do more computer work than using information you actally learned. I disliked working retail, regardless of the patient interactions.

 

[zelman]

You don't want to be a pharmacist.

 

[ldiot]

Maybe clinical pharmacy or ambulatory care... I know there are some am care pharmacies that are in "undeserved" areas that have complex patients meet with pharmacist. Some pharmacists even have colab practice agreements and see patients in primary care setting. With all that being said we are talking about like 5% of the job market here.

At CVS you will interact with hundreds of patients every day... explaining to them how a little pill could possibly cost so much or why their doctor didn't renew their prescription despite them skipping their last two appointments.

 

[zelman]

Maybe clinical pharmacy or ambulatory care... I know there are some am care pharmacies that are in "undeserved" areas that have complex patients meet with pharmacist. Some pharmacists even have colab practice agreements and see patients in primary care setting. With all that being said we are talking about like 5% of the job market here.

At CVS you will interact with hundreds of patients every day... explaining to them how a little pill could possibly cost so much or why their doctor didn't renew their prescription despite them skipping their last two appointments.

5%? Probably below 0.5%.

 

[Pharmibippy]

You don't want to be a pharmacist.

Expanding on this... Most jobs are in retail followed by hospital. If you can't see yourself doing either, then you probably want to reconsider pharmacy school.

 

[Amicable Angora]

I am going to be a P1 student this fall 17' and i am interested in doing an area of pharmacy with more doctor/patient interactions. Which area of pharmacy utilize this? I currently work in an inpatient pharmacy and i cant see myself just sitting at a desk all day and verifying orders. I tried to shadow an ped RPh and they did the same thing. If someone can explain which area would be utilizing patient counseling with physicians or similar tasks, that would be great. Basically i want to find an area in pharmacy that is different each day to keep it interesting. Iv worked at at CVS before and hated it, do not like the retail side even if there is more patient interaction, too much being yelled at by patients, and dealing with dumb insurances.

thanks

So you want to be a medical doctor. Why are you in pharmacy?

 

[Rockinacoustic]

By pure volume of patient interactions you will not top being a retail pharmacist.

As for meaningful patient interaction it depends...

 

[gwarm01]

So you want to be a medical doctor. Why are you in pharmacy?

Seconding this. Don't believe the lies spread by academia. The practice of pharmacy is nothing like the work environment you are seeking. Don't go into pharmacy hoping to find this sort of work, don't listen to any talk about new an emerging roles, provider status, residencies or anything else "potentially" creating these direct patient care jobs. They have been spewing out those lines for decades and you are far from the first student to get hoodwinked by the false presentation of the pharmacy career.

What you are looking for is medical school, nursing, PA.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

Amb care is fun for about a week.

If you're super elite and get a standing order to "prescribe", you'll spend every week repeating the same warfarin questionnaire 30 times a day and moving their warfarin dose around.

OR, if you're a real badass, you'll get diabetes management and use another questionnaire & get to type up notes with whatever BS the 900 lb patient thinks you want to hear.

"So, let's review, your typical breakfast is 100g of steel cut oats, followed by a 10g of carb snack at 10am, followed by a lunch of one lightly salted chicken breast and a carrot at 1pm, with a dinner of 8 almonds and a medium salad with no dressing at 7pm?
How was your blood sugar 762 this morning?"

"Ohhh, I might've had a sip of diet sprite right before I came in. Not even the whole can"

 

[Niosh]

"So, let's review, your typical breakfast is 100g of steel cut oats, followed by a 10g of carb snack at 10am, followed by a lunch of one lightly salted chicken breast and a carrot at 1pm, with a dinner of 8 almonds and a medium salad with no dressing at 7pm?
How was your blood sugar 762 this morning?"

"Ohhh, I might've had a sip of diet sprite right before I came in. Not even the whole can"

Is this the same patient that brings all their meds in for review in a used McDonald's bag?

 

[Amicable Angora]

Amb care is fun for about a week.

If you're super elite and get a standing order to "prescribe", you'll spend every week repeating the same warfarin questionnaire 30 times a day and moving their warfarin dose around.

OR, if you're a real badass, you'll get diabetes management and use another questionnaire & get to type up notes with whatever BS the 900 lb patient thinks you want to hear.

"So, let's review, your typical breakfast is 100g of steel cut oats, followed by a 10g of carb snack at 10am, followed by a lunch of one lightly salted chicken breast and a carrot at 1pm, with a dinner of 8 almonds and a medium salad with no dressing at 7pm?
How was your blood sugar 762 this morning?"

"Ohhh, I might've had a sip of diet sprite right before I came in. Not even the whole can"

"Stay healthy," bro.

 

[bacillus1]

I do inpatient internal medicine, and I have lots of interactions with both doctors and patients. Not too many jobs like mine out there anymore though.

Am care is pretty well summed up by CetiAlphaFive's comment. Wouldn't want to do that all my life.

 

[sakigt]

For the record, interactions, by definition, means youre going to get yelled at.

Ive been yelled at by patients, nurses, doctors, coworkers... my own internal thoughts

 

[Amicable Angora]

I find it ironic that all of these jobs supposedly being "real pharmacist" work are all imaginary roles or unpaid.

 

[Dred Pirate]

Amb care is fun for about a week.

If you're super elite and get a standing order to "prescribe", you'll spend every week repeating the same warfarin questionnaire 30 times a day and moving their warfarin dose around.

OR, if you're a real badass, you'll get diabetes management and use another questionnaire & get to type up notes with whatever BS the 900 lb patient thinks you want to hear.

"So, let's review, your typical breakfast is 100g of steel cut oats, followed by a 10g of carb snack at 10am, followed by a lunch of one lightly salted chicken breast and a carrot at 1pm, with a dinner of 8 almonds and a medium salad with no dressing at 7pm?
How was your blood sugar 762 this morning?"

"Ohhh, I might've had a sip of diet sprite right before I came in. Not even the whole can"

this actually made me lol

 

[Dred Pirate]

I find it ironic that all of these jobs supposedly being "real pharmacist" work are all imaginary roles or unpaid.

mainly unpaid - if it wasn't for academia supporting many / most of these sites via tuition/paying for rotations, virtually none of these jobs can self support. The closest thing you will get in an ambulatory care RPh who is utilized as a loss leader, or readmission prevention aspect in a MD's office

 

[ldiot]

Like the under served am care... they cannot support the physician let alone the pharmacist so the whole thing is federally funded. So you have to do 2 years of residency to make 80k and "interact" with patients who half the time cannot even speak English.

And the collaborative practice pharmacists use every trick in the book to increase their reimbursement and still have to work their second 20 hours a week in academia to make a living because the current payment model screws pharmacists.

The bottom line is if you wanted to be seeing patients you should have went to medical school. Why you would want to have to deal with patients in the first place, though, is a mystery to me. You could even become a NP with half the knowledge and still be able to do twice as much.

 

[Ketchupbottle]

What you've seen thus far with your inpatient shadowing experiences is not how all pharmacists practice. It'll depend on the practice area, team culture, and role itself. Some hospitals separate dispensing pharmacists from pharmacists who are purely in patient units. Aaaaand, you might say that once you're practicing, you can surely try to create your own role. I bet that peds pharmacist isn't always just at their desk.

Some ambulatory clinic pharmacists I've met meet with patients, answer consults, etc., so they're not just sitting at their desk looking at prescriptions/medication orders.

If you're looking for doctor/patient interactions, you should be aiming for medical school, as has been mentioned already, hahaha

 

[steveysmith54]

I think if you are looking for thrills and like medicine, I'd consider being an MD who practices emergency medicine or working at an urgent care.

 

[Shiue]

Pharmacy student wants to be a medical doctor but doesn't want to go to medical school. Smh....