This profession has no backbone.

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atticus27

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We take our lickings and do moot about it. Too many schools opening, we do nothing. Legislation bends us over, we do nothing. Walgreens POWER throwing away jobs, do nothing. 14 hour work days with no breaks, do nothing. Pharmacist goes to prison for a mistake, do nothing. What a bunch of spineless cowards.

The AMA would never put up with this.


I'll take pride in my job, but not in this profession.

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We take our lickings and do moot about it. Too many schools opening, we do nothing.
What can we do about that?
Legislation bends us over, we do nothing.
We don't know enough politicians.
Walgreens POWER throwing away jobs, do nothing.
Many of us don't work for walgreens.
14 hour work days with no breaks, do nothing.
Not everyone has those shifts. Ones that do probably don't have enough authority to make a suggestion that will stick.
Pharmacist goes to prison for a mistake, do nothing.
Any suggestions? I know we can try to learn from his mistake, but what more can we do about it?
 
We take our lickings and do moot about it. Too many schools opening, we do nothing. Legislation bends us over, we do nothing. Walgreens POWER throwing away jobs, do nothing. 14 hour work days with no breaks, do nothing. Pharmacist goes to prison for a mistake, do nothing. What a bunch of spineless cowards.

The AMA would never put up with this.


I'll take pride in my job, but not in this profession.

k.


Seriously, what do you want us to do, chain ourselves to the school doors? Break the guy out of prison?
 
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atticus, if you come up with ideas and pharmacists who agree with it, then you might be able to convince APhA to take some serious action.
 
And what are you doing? Just sitting there complaining never got anything done either you know.
 
I'm a pharmacy student dingleberries. I'm not in a position to do anything.
 
What can we do about that?

We don't know enough politicians.
Many of us don't work for walgreens. Not everyone has those shifts. Ones that do probably don't have enough authority to make a suggestion that will stick. Any suggestions? I know we can try to learn from his mistake, but what more can we do about it?

Doesn't matter if you work for Wags or not. It affects the profession as a whole. If a move such as mass centralized pharmacy operations not only do not benefit the profession but put it in jeopardy the APhA should intervene.
 
I'm a pharmacy student dingleberries. I'm not in a position to do anything.

After you graduate, "I'm paying off my loans. I'm not in a position to do anything." After you pay off your loans, "I'm raising my family. I'm not in a position to do anything." After you raise your family, "I'm 50! Let the young ones do the work."
 
I was speaking to someone at my local pharmacists' association about chains and whatnot. The fact of the matter is that no one would back this type of legislation, even if strongly lobbied for. There is a strong feeling in America, especially among Republicans, that government should not intervene in business, and that making laws about script counts, breaks, etc... would infringe upon this. Apparently also the local lobbyist group for chains helps out with a lot of pharmacy legislation such as fair audits, collaborative practice, etc... (with lobbyists and financially), so they don't want to piss them off either.

And there is no federal jurisdiction for limiting pharmacist work hours, so APhA wouldn't be of much help either.

The only way regulation of pharmacist work conditions could be pushed was if it could me made into a med. safety issue, with statistics of how medical dollars are saved when less errors are made because of more reasonable workflow. Such statistics are yet nowhere to be found.
 
Atticus,

I wholeheartedly agree. This profession is going down the ****ter. I wish I had researched pharmacy a little more before applying and not solely applied because it was an easier field to get in to compared to medicine. Flame away. ;)
 
Break the guy out of prison?

Hell yes. That'd be sweet. A mob of 10,000 pharmacists breaks the guy out of prison. Let's do this ****!

---

Agreed on the spineless thing. I'm moving to Canada...I'll do it...I swear...
 
Hell yes. That'd be sweet. A mob of 10,000 pharmacists breaks the guy out of prison. Let's do this ****!

---

Agreed on the spineless thing. I'm moving to Canada...I'll do it...I swear...

I wish this was facebook so I could "like" this post, haha
 
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i agree, as a whole, people need to grow a pair and stand up to this tide we are facing

just the situation at wags...i had so much problem getting other rph to sign my letter to corporate, its ridicolous....nobody wants to do anything bout it seems as a whole, just want to work away collecting 3 grand per 14 days (the reason why no one does anything about imo)
 
I wish this was facebook so I could "like" this post, haha

me too. an rph-led jailbreak would be so badass.

walgreens, AMA, Congress, no one would **** with us after that.
 
And what are you doing? Just sitting there complaining never got anything done either you know.

k.


Seriously, what do you want us to do, chain ourselves to the school doors? Break the guy out of prison?

'Tis easy to sit back and blame your colleagues,
'tis hard to start the change you want to see.

You, sir, are just as much a part of the problem as anyone else.

First of all I don't consider anyone in the APhA my colleagues. They're a disgrace to pharmacy and don't do a thing for me.

Okay, maybe I am the problem. As a P1 pharmacy student, a total newb to the profession, I don't feel like Martin Luther King-ing this gutless sorry excuse for an organized profession into what it needs to be. At the very least I don't have the time or energy to waste writing some asshats what they sure as hell outta know.
 
you win these battles by:

a) properly lobbying
b) launching subtle PR campaigns
c) properly donating to candidates

the slow build up of these 3 will yield a friendly political climate and the necessary laws in place to cement pharmacists as necessary workers deserving of any type of legislation. No one seems to balk when nurses get good ratios legislated, the public gets mad when MD's have to "fight big bad insurance companies" about treatments (when really those are MD's on the other side of the fence they're "fighting against.")

As of right now...we are publicly overpriced practitioners who fill bottles all day.

Institutionally, we are practitioners that save money and reduce hospital stays and medication issues.

Need to find a way to reconcile these two. Basically, we need to be sneaky and grease some palms in washington & state boards of pharmacy (ala chain stores in California with the recent labeling regulation strike down).
 
We are bunch of cynics who do nothing after all :)

Now you graduate, and change those things for us or change your major lol
 
We'll need some AK-47s, semtex , and some bullets. Let's do it.


Let's just raid WVU's trunk....if I remember correctly, he carries around enough guns to sustain a small war
 
I was thinking about the whole "too many pharmacy schools" issue and found a different perspective.

If there aren't many jobs and too many pharmacy students, wouldn't the ones that suck get weeded out? When there's a surplus of job openings, then any Joe Schmoe with a PharmD from Paymore University can get a job. OR OR I guess the argument would be that the one's that suck would be willing to get paid less, and the one's that are good will be left to rot?!
 
I was thinking about the whole "too many pharmacy schools" issue and found a different perspective.

If there aren't many jobs and too many pharmacy students, wouldn't the ones that suck get weeded out? When there's a surplus of job openings, then any Joe Schmoe with a PharmD from Paymore University can get a job. OR OR I guess the argument would be that the one's that suck would be willing to get paid less, and the one's that are good will be left to rot?!

no the ones who are white and male will probably get jobs. get it right!

anyways if there was a surplus it would probably be like respiratory therapy. There would be no full time positions. There would only be PRN and PRN sucks crap. I mean there would be less hours for everyone and no benefits. It would benefit the company not to pay people so much though.
 
Someone above mentioned that conservatives would block government-intervention pharmacy legislation (e.g., legislation that would set a maximum limit on how many prescriptions a pharmacist can fill per hour). Several points:

(1) Remember Medicare D? Republicans are eager to forcibly intervene in the pharmacy industry/market, but only under certain circumstances.
(2) As you suggested, APhA would not succeed in passing such laws at the federal level. Such legislation would have to be passed individually at each state level, which would require political resources we simply don't have. However, as a profession we could select one state or one geographic region, then focus all our efforts there. I strongly believe we could get such laws passed in at least two or three states. Pick liberal states to increase the likelihood of success. If we succeed, this would at least serve as an inspiration for the rest of the country.

Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "If we win here we will win everywhere." That same mentality could benefit pharmacy.
 
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i agree, this profession lacks a backbone.

i noticed it in pharm school. A LOT of pharmacists focus on things that are so irrelevant. it seems like this profession draws that kind of person.

they wont stand up and fight for real things just bs.
 
Atticus,

all it takes is one. Be an advocate instead of whining, do something about the things you don't like. Thats what makes this country great.
 
I wonder why the APhA can't just make a union out of thin air and recruit all their members. The same goes for CSHP.
 
I wonder why the APhA can't just make a union out of thin air and recruit all their members. The same goes for CSHP.

An APhA-made union cannot happen because there cannot be a union that represents all types of pharmacists (chain pharmacists do not want the same things as hospital pharmacists).
Now, a chain pharmacist union wouldn't be too bad. However, mandatory unionization of chain pharmacists may actually hurt their pay (my evidence being the mandatory unionization of techs in my chain store), so some might not even want a union.

I really think a chain union wouldn't be too bad. We now need to make an organization made up entirely of chain pharmacists.
 
An APhA-made union cannot happen because there cannot be a union that represents all types of pharmacists (chain pharmacists do not want the same things as hospital pharmacists).
Now, a chain pharmacist union wouldn't be too bad. However, mandatory unionization of chain pharmacists may actually hurt their pay (my evidence being the mandatory unionization of techs in my chain store), so some might not even want a union.

I really think a chain union wouldn't be too bad. We now need to make an organization made up entirely of chain pharmacists.

Even with possible conflicting rules and regulations?
 
An APhA-made union cannot happen because there cannot be a union that represents all types of pharmacists (chain pharmacists do not want the same things as hospital pharmacists).
Now, a chain pharmacist union wouldn't be too bad. However, mandatory unionization of chain pharmacists may actually hurt their pay (my evidence being the mandatory unionization of techs in my chain store), so some might not even want a union.

I really think a chain union wouldn't be too bad. We now need to make an organization made up entirely of chain pharmacists.

I'm pretty sure there is some organization like that. National Association of Chain Store Pharmacists or something like that. I don't remember the exact name, but I know they offered a scholarship to students in my class last fall. They could always unionize. The problem is, the people who work at stores that are still low volume or the people who work at high volume stores but like their DM and like their job probably aren't going to be on board with this, and a strike would only work if everyone was on board.
 
I'm pretty sure there is some organization like that. National Association of Chain Store Pharmacists or something like that. I don't remember the exact name, but I know they offered a scholarship to students in my class last fall. They could always unionize. The problem is, the people who work at stores that are still low volume or the people who work at high volume stores but like their DM and like their job probably aren't going to be on board with this, and a strike would only work if everyone was on board.

NACDS? It represents stores, not pharmacists.
 
My buddy met with an assemblyman last weekend. He said that pharmacists are nowhere as involved as other professions in legislation. Even super-specific niche scientists had clout among politicians over pharmacists. Coming from his mouth and not mine: "APhA has no balls compared to the AMA." We command little to no respect from any politicians anywhere. They are much more unified and fight hard for what they want.

As obvious as it is, I think our profession is inherently at a disadvantage due to many students choosing the career for the stability and flexibility of work hours with absolutely no concern for their profession's well-being. On top of that, it seems like most students seem more concerned about a 4.0 versus getting involved. On top of that, isn't the agenda of organizations AMCP and NCPA directly conflicting. In the end, we all lose.

I wonder why APhA can't have AMCP and NCPA fall under as a sub-organization, so we have a more unified voice. Not everyone will get what they want, but it's a step forward.
 
As obvious as it is, I think our profession is inherently at a disadvantage due to many students choosing the career for the stability and flexibility of work hours with absolutely no concern for their profession's well-being. On top of that, it seems like most students seem more concerned about a 4.0 versus getting involved. On top of that, isn't the agenda of organizations AMCP and NCPA directly conflicting. In the end, we all lose.

I wonder why APhA can't have AMCP and NCPA fall under as a sub-organization, so we have a more unified voice. Not everyone will get what they want, but it's a step forward.

I'm sure they would like AMCP and NCPA as sub-organizations, but those members aren't interested in that.
In face my state pharmacy organization has an academy of hospital pharmacists...and then there's the state version of ASHP. PPA would like to work more with PSHP, but that just sadly never happens.
And apparently pharmacists not getting much done has to do with our PACs have less money than medical PACs and industry PACs.
 
CVS seems to listen to their customers. Perhaps we can turn CVS's customers against them. For example, during the PCI calls, let the customers know a little about the horrors of working retail.

Also, send a complaint e-mail to corporate as if you were a customer (make up a name or whatever) and complain about whatever you would have complained about as an employee.
 
I think it seems like our profession doesn't have a backbone right now because we are trying to change it. Back in the day pharmacists were known for being drug dispensers...now, we are trying to do more clinical work and be more involved in direct patient care. Hospitals have done okay with little pharmacists' help, why would they want to change that? how can we prove that we are worth the extra $$?

What is it really that we want be known for? Do we even know?
 
CVS seems to listen to their customers. Perhaps we can turn CVS's customers against them. For example, during the PCI calls, let the customers know a little about the horrors of working retail.

LOL.

So your going to call your patients at home and tell them how stressed out you are on your job and your just calling to let them know. LOL. Dude, literally laughing while typing this.

I agree CVS has gone downhill very fast and work is 10x more stressful, but there are better solutions to this problem.
 
LOL.

So your going to call your patients at home and tell them how stressed out you are on your job and your just calling to let them know. LOL. Dude, literally laughing while typing this.

I agree CVS has gone downhill very fast and work is 10x more stressful, but there are better solutions to this problem.

Yeah, create an e-mail account unrelated to your name. Send an e-mail as a CVS customer complaining about pharmacy always being understaffed resulting in long lines.
 
This profession has no backbone due to several reasons. Here are some:

1. Politics, lobbying, power. There is no way AphA has as much power as AMA, or even close to ANA (nursing), or even AAPA (for PA), or ADA. Also, take a look at the hospital CEO. Most of them have nursing background (RN+MBA), MD or business background. When do you ever see a Pharm.D run a hospital? There might be, but rare.

2. Pharmacists are "fine" with 50-60 something/hour attitude.
3. Garbage in = garbage out! I sometimes can't believe how some people could have become pharmacists with slobby attitude and cussing out mouths during work. You rarely see an MD cussing out or dressing slobby....The problem is while majority of pharmacists are professional appealing, some are extremely ghetto and lousy.
4. Public appealing. I work as a pharmacist in the hospital and sadly, some of my friends, who are at master degree level, ask me ,"SO you stand 8 hours a day and fill a lot of medications huh?". Public still see us as pill pushers!!!!! This never gonna change until...i dun know when. If you talk about clinical pharmacy to them, they have no F* idea what u are BS about...

5. Too many pharmacists. Thanks to new schools and a saturated job market, nowsaday, you can find a pharmacist easily to replace another one. Gone the day of bonus, etc...market is flooded with pharmacists from old schools, new schools, and openning schools.


more to come...
 
This profession has no backbone due to several reasons. Here are some:

1. Politics, lobbying, power. There is no way AphA has as much power as AMA, or even close to ANA (nursing), or even AAPA (for PA), or ADA. Also, take a look at the hospital CEO. Most of them have nursing background (RN+MBA), MD or business background. When do you ever see a Pharm.D run a hospital? There might be, but rare.

2. Pharmacists are "fine" with 50-60 something/hour attitude.
3. Garbage in = garbage out! I sometimes can't believe how some people could have become pharmacists with slobby attitude and cussing out mouths during work. You rarely see an MD cussing out or dressing slobby....The problem is while majority of pharmacists are professional appealing, some are extremely ghetto and lousy.
4. Public appealing. I work as a pharmacist in the hospital and sadly, some of my friends, who are at master degree level, ask me ,"SO you stand 8 hours a day and fill a lot of medications huh?". Public still see us as pill pushers!!!!! This never gonna change until...i dun know when. If you talk about clinical pharmacy to them, they have no F* idea what u are BS about...

5. Too many pharmacists. Thanks to new schools and a saturated job market, nowsaday, you can find a pharmacist easily to replace another one. Gone the day of bonus, etc...market is flooded with pharmacists from old schools, new schools, and openning schools.


more to come...
i know this sucks. But ApHA can't do anything if they don't know we are having problems. I am sure if we all send at least an email to someone high up in ApHA voicing our concerns it might help. I know it probably won't solve anything but at least someone in the field will be more wary of the problem. I am going to do this. Here is the email addresses for ApHA members: http://www.pharmacist.com/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Department_Contacts

I am also planning to write letters to the deans of pharmacy at the older schools. I bet if you appeal by saying..so many pharmacy schools will lead to less competitive students and also too many pharmacy schools will lead to a decline in students wanting to attend their school....they will be calling APCE
 
i know this sucks. But ApHA can't do anything if they don't know we are having problems. I am sure if we all send at least an email to someone high up in ApHA voicing our concerns it might help. I know it probably won't solve anything but at least someone in the field will be more wary of the problem. I am going to do this. Here is the email addresses for ApHA members: http://www.pharmacist.com/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Department_Contacts

I am also planning to write letters to the deans of pharmacy at the older schools. I bet if you appeal by saying..so many pharmacy schools will lead to less competitive students and also too many pharmacy schools will lead to a decline in students wanting to attend their school....they will be calling APCE

They didn't become deans of well established pharmacy schools by sitting back and watching the world pass them by. Believe me- they know the current issues in pharmacy.

In my opinion you are approaching the wrong people by looking to the deans for help because new schools opening up will not affect them. Take VCU for example- on average there are 2400 applicants for 130 spots. IF more pharmacy schools opening leads to an increase in the number of applicants (dont see that correlation either...), who says VCU has to accept them? If you add 1000 poor applicants to the pool, the same 130 would still get picked
 
This profession has no backbone due to several reasons. Here are some:

1. Politics, lobbying, power. There is no way AphA has as much power as AMA, or even close to ANA (nursing), or even AAPA (for PA), or ADA. Also, take a look at the hospital CEO. Most of them have nursing background (RN+MBA), MD or business background. When do you ever see a Pharm.D run a hospital? There might be, but rare.

2. Pharmacists are "fine" with 50-60 something/hour attitude.
3. Garbage in = garbage out! I sometimes can't believe how some people could have become pharmacists with slobby attitude and cussing out mouths during work. You rarely see an MD cussing out or dressing slobby....The problem is while majority of pharmacists are professional appealing, some are extremely ghetto and lousy.
4. Public appealing. I work as a pharmacist in the hospital and sadly, some of my friends, who are at master degree level, ask me ,"SO you stand 8 hours a day and fill a lot of medications huh?". Public still see us as pill pushers!!!!! This never gonna change until...i dun know when. If you talk about clinical pharmacy to them, they have no F* idea what u are BS about...

5. Too many pharmacists. Thanks to new schools and a saturated job market, nowsaday, you can find a pharmacist easily to replace another one. Gone the day of bonus, etc...market is flooded with pharmacists from old schools, new schools, and openning schools.


more to come...

You must not know many doctors...
 
They didn't become deans of well established pharmacy schools by sitting back and watching the world pass them by. Believe me- they know the current issues in pharmacy.

In my opinion you are approaching the wrong people by looking to the deans for help because new schools opening up will not affect them. Take VCU for example- on average there are 2400 applicants for 130 spots. IF more pharmacy schools opening leads to an increase in the number of applicants (dont see that correlation either...), who says VCU has to accept them? If you add 1000 poor applicants to the pool, the same 130 would still get picked
but wouldn't their applicants be less competitive. Does VCU want to be the best pharmacy school out there? If pharmacy does become a stick in the mud University of Phoenix lawyer career pathway, wouldn't pharmacy schools depend on ranking then?
 
but wouldn't their applicants be less competitive. Does VCU want to be the best pharmacy school out there? If pharmacy does become a stick in the mud University of Phoenix lawyer career pathway, wouldn't pharmacy schools depend on ranking then?

Who cares if the applicants are less competitive? consider...we currently have 2400 applicants for 130 spots...Breaking that down we probably have 400 competative applicants MAX, 250 get interviewed, 130 accepted...who cares if 2,000 applications are crap or 10,000 applications are crap- the same 400 would be competative, the same 250 would get interviewed, and the same 130 would be accepted.
 
Who cares if the applicants are less competitive? consider...we currently have 2400 applicants for 130 spots...Breaking that down we probably have 400 competative applicants MAX, 250 get interviewed, 130 accepted...who cares if 2,000 applications are crap or 10,000 applications are crap- the same 400 would be competative, the same 250 would get interviewed, and the same 130 would be accepted.

I guess that makes sense....schools are in it for money first and formost and then fame/glory
 
amen now lets see someone do some change...
 
First of all I don't consider anyone in the APhA my colleagues. They're a disgrace to pharmacy and don't do a thing for me.

Okay, maybe I am the problem. As a P1 pharmacy student, a total newb to the profession, I don't feel like Martin Luther King-ing this gutless sorry excuse for an organized profession into what it needs to be. At the very least I don't have the time or energy to waste writing some asshats what they sure as hell outta know.

Then GTFO if you think this is a sorry excuse for a profession and you're too lazy to write or even join an organization. You call people out for not having a backbone, and yet you admit you "don't feel like" doing anything about it. Are you going to DC in March and talking to members of Congress in person about pharmacy? No? I should be calling you a spineless coward, not the other way around.
 
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