To answer the Original Poster's question about why we are not using our power "better" as pharmacists, not as forum users and posters:
1. Many of the pharmacists that are helping students are still pursuing their residency training and not helping their non-residency-trained colleagues. Colleagues refers to pharmacy school graduates who do not have a residency or a fellowship. I encountered this many times among my own peers and even some faculty. The rally cry was: "Where are my PGY2s at?," not "How can we help everyone else that is not residency trained get to our level?" or "How can we provide quality patient care together?" Residency-trained pharmacists are not only refusing to get everyone else up to speed, but they are asking the wrong questions. The wording was changed to: "PGY2s. Where you at?" a few weeks later; the rally cry conveyed the same message as before but with different wording. The purpose: to keep the teams together and to encourage buy-in.
2. Pharmacy is in its own silos, which are traditionally called cliques (like high school, only on a professional level): academia, managed care, research, PGY1 and PGY2, retail, independent, clinical, staff, industry fellows, business owners, and the list goes on. Due to this lack of collaboration and lack of buy-in to specific causes, it is very difficult for pharmacists of all specialties to come together for legislative efforts. Such meetings only occur on Legislative Days and other political gatherings. The motivations among pharmacists in top organizational leadership are inconsistent; like politics, everyone has their own agenda. It's hard to get everyone on the same page. Only five pharmacy "Rockstars" are promoted while the rest are CEOs of companies; what about the other 15,000 graduates every year and the other 300,000 pharmacists according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics?
3. Once students graduate from pharmacy school and are accepted into a residency, the emotional restraints are removed. Many of them have an elitist attitude and can refuse to train their colleagues under a vague concept of "professionalism." Such continual rejection and neglect makes the rest of us registered pharmacists not want to "help" much less generate our "why" for being pharmacists. I spoke with a variety of pharmacy directors as well as those I worked with. The consensus was one fact: residency alone is not experience, but training under a licensed pharmacist. The resident still has not been a pharmacist yet because their interventions are observed by a preceptor. To the best of my knowledge, residency is like PharmD rotations all over again, only with more patients. The stakes are higher than as a student, you are paid very little compared to practicing pharmacists, and you must have your license in that state (pass the NAPLEX, MPJE, and meet other requirements to stay licensed which includes some CE credits).
4. Student loans are much higher than before, forcing us to accept jobs we cannot use our PharmD for or jobs that pay less than what we are worth. We need to take care of ourselves before we take care of others. That is how society views progress and how the outside world views mental health. The pharmacist view conflicts with this, saying we must serve no matter what even if it is for no pay. Financial and personal issues lead to burnout and eventually apathy. Florida is the only state, according to an ABC iTeam investigation, that enforces the student loan law. If you are in default of your student loans, you cannot practice. Solution: see if the Board of Pharmacy will change your jurisdiction (if possible). You may have to take the NAPLEX again and pay the associated fees.
Source:
Florida Board of Health suspends health care licenses over student loan defaults January 19, 2019.
Some states, as you read the article, repealed the laws already. Florida is not one of them.
5. Each person and pharmacist has their own cause to support. Importance of those causes is relative to whatever the agenda is, not what needs to be done.
6. When we bring up these issues involving patient care, the first thing the Boards of Pharmacy and other pharmacists review is our own personal and professional profile, not the issue we discuss. This goes for pharmacists in practice and those that are elitist. In such scenarios, judgment is easy to pass but difficult to restrain.
7. We are not using our power because no one hears us. Lobbyists from the American Medical Association (AMA) have much more power than pharmacists, especially in FL. The current Florida Society of Health Systems Pharmacists (FSHP) chapter has trouble with this.
8. Pharmacists choose alternative careers once their loans are paid off, regardless of the training they receive. I spoke about this information in previous posts (PharmD to PA, PharmD to physician, and Pharmacist to Dentist). The thought is this: they paid their dues: they are done (or they lost enjoyment in the field for whatever the reason). However, removing themselves from the field is reframed as follows: "I am grateful to be starting a new journey..."
9. Quantitative objectives are hardly considered in pharmacy as a measure of success in anything other than educational and job placement outcomes (ACPE). Furthermore, pharmacy cannot agree on what the appropriate system of quality measures is, so we default to the measure our employer has for us. This is what we refer to as the "metrics."
10. Lack of measures of certainty by schools, national pharmacy professional organizations, and increased morale boosting for only residency-trained pharmacists and not for pharmacists that have neither a fellowship nor a residency. Residency-trained pharmacists are the only ones that can provide quality patient care and do not want to train the rest of us (unless of course we are students). Selfish behavior, but it is true.
11. The majority of pharmacists that practice are in retail pharmacy. Those pharmacists, especially with the 2019 WalMart layoffs, are not treated well as employees. Even the statement "treated well" is an understatement given the work conditions. Not every PharmD candidate or pharmacist is cut out for entrepreneurship; also, not every pharmacist wants to be an independent contractor for life.
If you view all of these factors, it is not surprising how easy pessimism becomes or how slow pharmacy progress is.
To sum it up: pharmacy as a profession has poor leadership compared with other health professions. The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) is one of many organizations that fails to deliver.
