Pharmacy respect

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I'm glad ASHP was on top of responding to this letter by the AMA, but what good is this really doing?

The AMA keeps publishing reports on how dumb pharmacists are, which are all relatively public and everyone can see them. The response from our profession is continually a private letter to the AMA saying "please stop bullying us..." In my opinion if the AMA is putting out these reports to sway peoples opinion, we need to publish our own reports on how pharmacists do improve the safety and efficacy of medications and respond to the AMA on a public forum, not just in a private letter. No one sees these rebuttals by pharmacy except pharmacists!
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VCU2011 said:
I'm glad ASHP was on top of responding to this letter by the AMA, but what good is this really doing?

The AMA keeps publishing reports on how dumb pharmacists are, which are all relatively public and everyone can see them. The response from our profession is continually a private letter to the AMA saying "please stop bullying us..." In my opinion if the AMA is putting out these reports to sway peoples opinion, we need to publish our own reports on how pharmacists do improve the safety and efficacy of medications and respond to the AMA on a public forum, not just in a private letter. No one sees these rebuttals by pharmacy except pharmacists!
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It was actually reversed in this case, the AMA was a private letter/report to members only, the ASHP rebuttal was technically public.

Either way, do people even care about either paper? Is the AMA even relevant anymore? I heard their numbers are shrinking and physicians just aren't renewing...can't seem to figure out where I read that or if I'm making that up entirely :smuggrin:
 
Going through this thread, I was reminded of a question one of my professors had asked the class about Pharmacy culture, and what Pharmacists share in common, whether it's a Pharmacist working in the US, Canada or the UK. More specifically, he asked us to think of adjectives to describe Pharmacists. He then started listing adjectives such as: anal retentive, methodical etc.

I would like to add one more characteristic to that list. It seems to me that most Pharmacists have an inferiority complex, constantly seeking approval from the public and other health care professionals, especially doctors. This probably isn't a revelation to anyone, in fact, the professor did mention it in his talk. Yet, I am baffled as to way this is the case. Why do Pharmacists feel inferior to doctors? Why do pharmacists constantly feel the need to assert themselves in the workplace?

Also, why are Pharmacy students more pessimistic and cynical than the Pharmacists themselves? I'm guilty of that too. I am a constant pessimist after all, but I have always been that way.

It seems like most Pharmacy students and Pharmacists share my anxiety about the profession, but then again, I might be guilty of confirmation bias or maybe I'm just guilty of browsing SDN.

I am not seeking any answers, but it feels good to post these thoughts on a public forum, it's my way of venting. I apologize to whoever read this rant. And..No, I cannot give you back the two minutes of your life that you spent reading this post.
 
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twilightz said:
I would like to add one more characteristic to that list. It seems to me that most Pharmacists have an inferiority complex, constantly seeking approval from the public and other health care professionals, especially doctors.
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I do not think it is an inferiority complex rather a desire to have our services valued and appreciated by the general public and other healthcare providers. No one is really sure what we do. The general public thinks we just are one of the people behind the counter that is stopping them from getting their Vicodin filled 3 weeks early. The public can't understand why it will be 30 minutes for their prescriptions to get filled I mean all we have to do is throw some pills in a bottle right? Corporate retail management sees us as the people who make more money then they do and are only there because legally we have to be.

Then there is your average floor nurse in a hospital who thinks we are the people that can never get their medications to them on time and all we do is sit on our ass in the basement and do nothing while they slave away on the floor. Doctors think we are the people who should just mindlessly fill whatever prescriptions they write without question and leave them alone. We are also the people who are stealing their immunization business and now we want prescriptive authority. To top it all off we make a crap load of money. Basically we are doing something no one understands or values for a whole lot of money. Inferiority complex? No. Identity crisis? Maybe.

The days of the Pharmacist standing behind the counter doing nothing but counting pills all day are long over. Unfortunately a large portion of the general public and healthcare providers still think that's all we do and should do.
 
I am sorry to hear that you are not being respected as pharmacists. I had initially planned to become a pharmacist but got side tracked and am now a critical care nurse.

Please know that I respect y'all. Most of the pharmacists I know are awesome. Only one that I don't respect and that is pretty good odds.

The PharmD in my hospital is incredible. She is a great resource and she is very proactive. Love, love, love her.

And the pharmacists at the Walmart where I fill my Rx are awesome. I have persistent indigestion and found Prilosec helped but Zantac did not and I saw all kinds of other meds and wasn't which to choose so I asked the pharmacist. She explained to me which of the meds were in the same drug class as Prilosec and which were same as Zantac. Knowing this helped me to know to stay in the drug class Prilosec is in since it did help. That few minutes of her time meant a lot to me and I appreciated it and I told her so.

:love:
 
twilightz said:
It seems to me that most Pharmacists have an inferiority complex, constantly seeking approval from the public and other health care professionals, especially doctors. This probably isn't a revelation to anyone, in fact, the professor did mention it in his talk. Yet, I am baffled as to way this is the case. Why do Pharmacists feel inferior to doctors? Why do pharmacists constantly feel the need to assert themselves in the workplace?
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The same could be said for nurses.

A good chunk of pharmacists are ex-premeds, and for whatever reason abandoned that path. It's like seeing an ex walk down the hall everyday, she's still pretty hot, makes more money than you and you just know you two could have still been together, if only... pretty biting, huh? that would make anyone a little neurotic.
 
Dentist have the highest rate of suicide among health professionals....
 
MountainPharmD said:
I do not think it is an inferiority complex rather a desire to have our services valued and appreciated by the general public and other healthcare providers. No one is really sure what we do. The general public thinks we just are one of the people behind the counter that is stopping them from getting their Vicodin filled 3 weeks early. The public can’t understand why it will be 30 minutes for their prescriptions to get filled I mean all we have to do is throw some pills in a bottle right? Corporate retail management sees us as the people who make more money then they do and are only there because legally we have to be.

Then there is your average floor nurse in a hospital who thinks we are the people that can never get their medications to them on time and all we do is sit on our ass in the basement and do nothing while they slave away on the floor. Doctors think we are the people who should just mindlessly fill whatever prescriptions they write without question and leave them alone. We are also the people who are stealing their immunization business and now we want prescriptive authority. To top it all off we make a crap load of money. Basically we are doing something no one understands or values for a whole lot of money. Inferiority complex? No. Identity crisis? Maybe.

The days of the Pharmacist standing behind the counter doing nothing but counting pills all day are long over. Unfortunately a large portion of the general public and healthcare providers still think that’s all we do and should do.
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This is a very clear picture you illustrated there...:thumbup:
 
If pharmacists are going to get respect, it is going to have to start with respecting ourselves. We are all getting PharmDs now. Maybe we should start introducing ourselves as "Dr. ____" instead of by our first names. Most pharmacists I know never use the title, except for those involved in academics. No disrespect for the BSPharm guys because I have the utmost respect for them. Those guys are just as good as PharmDs. I would say that I am a pretty down to earth person, but for the longest time I did have this inferiority complex to physicians. But looking back, pharmacy school is no joke. It is the hardest thing I've done in my life. I know I could have gone to med school and handled it, but I was more of a chemistry geek. Either way, we know our ****. I think some physicians feel threatened by other professionals and they feel like they are the only ones that deserve to be called Dr. All NPs are going to be DNPs pretty soon, and I guarantee they will be calling themselves Dr. Why not us? This link doesn't really apply to pharmacists, but you guys may find it interesting regarding the changing role of nursing. It also talks about DNPs. Bottom line: be good at what you do, take the profession and yourself seriously. Be valuable to the patients as well as other healthcare providers and you will earn respect. And by the way, the AMA is trying to c0ck block these nurses too. P.S. I am not attacking physicians. I just don't like it when the AMA tries to belittle other professionals. Health care is too complex to let one group of people handle everything. We need people with expertise in many fields of study to work together to provide quality healthcare to patients.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36472308/ns/health-health_care
 
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Anyone know where I can get a copy of the original AMA article?
 
Brigade4Radiant said:
No they don't that is an urban legend.
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Really?

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2301/do-dentists-have-the-highest-suicide-rate

Dentists' odds of suicide "are 6.64 times greater than the rest of the working age population," writes researcher Steven Stack. "Dentists suffer from relatively low status within the medical profession and have strained relationships with their clients--few people enjoy going to the dentist." One study of Oregon dentists found that they had the highest suicide rate of any group investigated.
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wow, i completely forgot about the troll that started this thread. thanks for the reminder, seriously.
 
tungsten87 said:
wow, i completely forgot about the troll that started this thread. thanks for the reminder, seriously.
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Although he was a troll, some issues he brought up actually still reflect to today's reality in our profession .:thumbup:
 
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_bxNYgHpbk[/YOUTUBE]

SHABAMMM!
 
You can't make anyone on this forum happy. Start a new topic and they yell "use the search function next time or reply to an existing thread and they yell "why did you bring up a topic from a few years ago".
 
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BenJammin said:
You can't make anyone on this forum happy. Start a new topic and they yell "use the search function next time or reply to an existing thread and they yell "why did you bring up a topic from a few years ago".
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So you are unhappy about how other people are unhappy?
 
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