Staffing and floating

[SeekerofTruth]

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So I've been a floater for 2 months now and my district supervisor hasn't mentioned giving me a staff position however all the others in my intern class that I started with have been given stores. I'm not sure why. Is it possible my pharmacy supervisor sees some fault in my work? I make mistakes, I'm not hiding that fact but to my knowledge it's never affected a patient.

I'm not sure if I should ask him or not.

 

[RangerRx99]

Perhaps he/she feels you need more experience. Try your best not to make another mistake even your past mistakes didn't affect the patients. What will you do differently to prevent mistake from happen in the future? Do you take ownership when you float to stores or you have floater mentality (just finish the shift then go home?) Do you tell techs what to do or you let them run the show? When you see a line at pick up with only 1 tech/cashier while you have 2-3 techs in the back, do you tell one of them to help w/ the line? Do you promote immunization? Have you taken initiative to learn pharmacy manager tasks on your own? District manager know how good you are, they can actually see how fast you verify prescriptions (but don't let speed jeopardizes quality.) By just doing shots when you float to stores will get his/her attention real fast. I've been with 3 companies so far in the past 18 years and became PIC after a few months with each company. When they seek you out then you can negotiate your pay raise especially PIC. For now learn everything while you float. Every time I float to another store to pick up extra shift, I learn something new from that store to bring back and implement at my store.

 

[owlegrad]

I have personally never seen or met a pharmacy manager that actually, truly cares about mistakes. I have never heard a conversation where someone says "I would love to have X be my staff pharmacist (or PIC) but X just makes too many mistakes". It's not the mistakes. It is either personality or work ethic or people skills or something like that. Of course the number of openings for staff pharmacists is probably working against you as well so if you know you get along with people and are a hard worker just give it time and you will be a staff pharmacist in no time.

 

[pharm B]

Have you built any bridges with the managers you've worked with? As mentioned above, it's not usually mistakes made but rather personality and best fit that factors in.

 

[Sine Cura]

I have personally never seen or met a pharmacy manager that actually, truly cares about mistakes.

Really now? When they're misfills, well every misfill causes problems, especially wrong drug and wrong patient and it creates more paperwork than if someone didn't screw up in the first place. When people give out wrong info like lidocaine patches can't be cut it erodes the credibility of the wrong pharmacist and the credibility of the pharmacy. Etc etc

 

[owlegrad]

Really now? When they're misfills, well every misfill causes problems, especially wrong drug and wrong patient and it creates more paperwork than if someone didn't screw up in the first place. When people give out wrong info like lidocaine patches can't be cut it erodes the credibility of the wrong pharmacist and the credibility of the pharmacy. Etc etc

But did he offer flu shots and verify the scripts before they go red? That is what the manager cares about.



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[lord999]

I have personally never seen or met a pharmacy manager that actually, truly cares about mistakes. I have never heard a conversation where someone says "I would love to have X be my staff pharmacist (or PIC) but X just makes too many mistakes". It's not the mistakes. It is either personality or work ethic or people skills or something like that. Of course the number of openings for staff pharmacists is probably working against you as well so if you know you get along with people and are a hard worker just give it time and you will be a staff pharmacist in no time.

You are lucky you've never met those pharmacists. There are pharmacists that everyone refused to cover for after their shifts or had them as permanent staff pharmacists because they not only caused mistakes, the patients always complained to the Board them causing a headache of paperwork. There's a short list in AZ that I'm never work with for those reasons (SAW, AIR, TJS are the signing initials of those pharmacists).

In the hospital, it's the pharmacists that NEVER want to make a decision or look things up, and defer upstairs to oversight for what should be their job in terms of knowing the methods of exception troubleshooting.

 

[npage148]

Yeah. Customer complaints and having staff pharmacists grump about having I clean up after you. As well as not doing clinical tasks (flu shots etc) and killing workflow metics. The dm quickly figures out a weak floater if they already don't know

 

[Sine Cura]

Getting along with people is important but hard work is not enough.

People can say they work hard but when they flag everything needing clarification/intervention that is annoying as **** and destroys workflow. Save your time and stand your ground for things that actually require intervention bro. "Patient taking 0.3 and 0.2 mg clonidine?" Doesn't count. Inferential reasoning is hard yo

Some classic examples are not changing the albuterol HFA or calling because the script says "QD" instead of "1 QD." Ok, the assistant putting in the e-script is probably an illiterate ***** but it's freakin prenatal vitamins. Fine, just fax the freakin' office to fix their error (in the future while you fill it anyway) but in fact they never do

Or they are clueless about the law and fill fake scripts despite your own techs telling them it's fake just to avoid a customer complaint. Hmm, the guy looks baked, provides no ID, the home address is an open field, the doctor practices regularly 500 miles away yet is also an urgent care doctor in your area. Hmm. Don't freakin' fill it?

"I would hate to have X be my staff pharmacist because X is" [too unproductive|too unaware|too timid|too sloppy|too OCD|too lazy to fill once in a while|dumb as a rock] (pick any)

 

[WVUPharm2007]

90% of the time its because you are too slow and nobody wants their metrics ruined.

 

[Lnsean]

But did he offer flu shots and verify the scripts before they go red? That is what the manager cares about.



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lol this is so true. I don't know why people are acting like this is not the case. I've worked with tons of managers and no one cares about pt safety or any of that non sense. They cared if I asked people about flu shots and how many I've given. They cared about wait times and why or why I didn't fill a narcotic script...but pt safety? Nah.

 

[Lnsean]

90% of the time its because you are too slow and nobody wants their metrics ruined.

this is probably it...or you're kinda hard to work with (either you're really slow or you're too careful and call the MD on every little thing)

 

[Sine Cura]

What would I ask a floater about patient safety? Are you checking the profile consistently? Are you intelligent enough to resolve DURs? Are you checking peds dosing? How are you counseling? That's all a basic part of the job. Meanwhile there's 10-15 other things to try to stay on top off metric-wise and why did you flag this ibuprofen discharge Rx from an OB/GYN as requiring intervention just because Medi-Cal still says the patient is pregnant?

 

[Charcoales]

Speed matter most (leaving as little mess as possible for next shift too)

 

[owlegrad]

What would I ask a floater about patient safety? Are you checking the profile consistently? Are you intelligent enough to resolve DURs? Are you checking peds dosing? How are you counseling? That's all a basic part of the job.

Right, so basic that corporate doesn't ever care about it or at least doesn't care enough to make it part of the metrics. But flu shots, that is a totally different story!

 

[quickpic007]

So I've been a floater for 2 months now and my district supervisor hasn't mentioned giving me a staff position however all the others in my intern class that I started with have been given stores. I'm not sure why. Is it possible my pharmacy supervisor sees some fault in my work? I make mistakes, I'm not hiding that fact but to my knowledge it's never affected a patient.

I'm not sure if I should ask him or not.

careful what you wish for. Half the stores out there suck, floaters have less responsibility generally. Unless you are wasting more than an hour commute daily just roll for now and wait and choose a prime store when the chance arises.

 

[Sine Cura]

Variable commute and not really being able to take care of problems or issues to their conclusion (a.k.a. accountability) would suck as a regular floater. Also not knowing a particular store's problems or idiosyncrasies puts you at a disadvantage. TBH though 9 out of 10 pharmacists don't give a rat's ass about what I just mentioned, floater or not. :/

Be a free-as-a-bird floater. Bonus pts if you actually care to do a decent job

 

[PharmD.girl]

You definitely should speak up! Let your district manager know that you would like a staff position as soon as one opens up in your area. I was in retail for 9 years and while I hated floating, I met several pharmacists that actually preferred to float due to less responsibility. It is possible that your district manager thinks you are doing well and knows they can depend on you, so why fix what's not broken? You'll never know until you ask!

 

[eeyore spice]

I floated for 2.5 years and greatly preferred it to being stuck in a crappy store. I was then offered what I thought was my dream job, luckily didn't burn any bridges, kind of dropped a lit match in my exit interview though...now I'm basically doing the same effing floating for the same company but through an agency. Some-expenses-paid vacations around the state but no benefits.