PharmacyTales — this is for you!

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as --Not Pharmacy--, Blogs I like, Update

PharmacyTales and I appear to both be avid gamers.

PT - this one is for you!

http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/manifesto.html

This is an awesome rant about the woes targeting gaming. I love it. I fucking love it!

I guess idiots just wanna be heard…

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as --Not Pharmacy--, Blogs I like, Doctors, Me being a dick, Stupid People

I’d bet my bottom dollar that that same idiot that emailed me, sent The Angry Pharmacist a silly ass message as well. I would gather that the “doctor” sent Angry his email before I got my contact — as I got the abbreviated version:

how come there is no direct contact to the pharmacist who writes this and plays dr. and police and putting patients in harms way because he hates his over paying pill counting job?

There is direct contact. Lots of it. You’re just too busy writing long ass sentences to see it. I reply to every comment made on my posts. I have a contact form that emails me directly at webmaster[at]theangriestpharmacist.com (which you used to send me this paragr…err…sentence). I’m sure I’ve posted my email address in the past — regardless, webmaster is always a good guess.

I’d assume you are talking about the degree of anonymity. Other pharmacist’s blog identify themselves (JP At Large being the most prominent). Here’s the thing - I’m not posting heartwarming anecdotes. I’m posting stories about jerks - and telling the world about it. If someone knows who I am, then they could feasibly figure out who the patient is. That could cause me problems because of various privacy laws, and I could lose my job because of the content of my posts. Nonetheless, the forms of contact I’ve listed go directly to me — just because I don’t list my name, phone number and address doesn’t mean you can’t contact me. I keep the level of anonymity you think you have. As my site now says, I know your information. Everything is logged. Dude, I know your IP, everything about your computer, where you are, and even which route that data took from me to you. I even crossreferenced your IP address, with your location, and your name, and I have a pretty good idea of WHO you are. You have no anonymity. I do. And I’m keeping my upper hand…but I digress.

And why is that always the charge of pissed off doctors. “Stop playing doctor.” — Last time some prick said that to me I replied that, “One of us needs to, our this lady is gonna die because of your incompetence.” That’s when the MD wrote for penicillin and the patient was deathly allergic (which she said she told him). Consequently, I have a doctorate and my “higher education degree” is just as much a doctorate as yours. What I mean by this is that you do not have an official doctoral degree without a dissertation and defense of your dissertation — which neither you nor I have done. (I doubt you have 4 degrees like you told Angry). Note: I don’t ever get referred to as Dr.

Anywho - my playing of “doctor” as you put it has never put someone in harm’s way. I have never put someone in harm’s way. I’m just an asshole - that has nothing to do with a patient’s outcomes. My hatred of my job lies with the assholes I deal with - not with the patients that care about their healthcare and wellbeing and respect my knowledge and what service(s) I can provide to them. I hate my job for getting screamed at by some jerkoff wanting his Vicodin refilled and his doctor didn’t call in the authorization. The reasons could go on forever, but they are all linked to one thing: dickhead patients. That forces me to be a dick back - that’s where we get the hilarity of this blog.

As far as your nonsensical “police” statement, Pharmacists have been expected to police the world of drugs for a long time now. Does anyone go to their doctor to buy Sudafed? Nope that shit has been controlled by pharmacists for some time now. We log it, and if someone’s getting to much from many locations, we are expected to alert the proper authorities. Someone brings in a fake or stolen prescription — why wouldn’t we call the police? Someone has committed a crime and we have seen and caught them redhanded. Why should I ignore it and allow them to go unpunished? They broke the law - not me. It is our duty to report those things to ensure that the person does not continue to break the law and divert controlled medications.

Overpaying? Fuck you - you stupid, arrogant, pompous, asshole-prick-lame-excuse for a human being. I went to school for a long time. I left school with around a $95,000 debt. How can I be expected to repay that amount if I don’t make a large income? It’s still going to take me 15-20 years to pay it off — longer if you buy a house, car, and have kids. Suck my dick, guy who identified himself as T.V.ELWAY MD. And it’s also called supply and demand. There’s not enough pharmacists - the industry is booming because idiots like you encourage big titted blondes and write for every name brand unecessary garbage - so there’s lots of openings. Decreased supply coupled with increase demand means increased cost — come on, you have 4 degrees, I’d think you would remember that from 3rd grade. If there were more pharmacists than needed - salary will drop. We won’t catch up with demands for 10 years - so that won’t matter.

Anyway, for the shit I put up with, the responsibility I have, the number of hours I work, and the timeframe I work - I deserve my fucking money. Let’s see a doctor for a few “evening shifts” - let’s say a 12pm-9pm or even an 11am-7pm. Not a fucking chance. “I’m a doctor and my office hours are from 9-4:30pm and 10-2pm on Friday…Eat shit you fucking asshole. I’m overpaid? You work 20 hours a week. I worked that much in college…

Merry Christmas plus a GREAT POST and my thoughts…

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as Blogs I like, My nose itches, True Story, Work Sucks

Pharmacy Mike has made, quite possibly, the best pharmacy rant post I’ve ever seen in my life. It is eloquent, well-written, and just angry enough to make me smile. I’m envious of how well written it is, but I am not envious of the situation he and many of our colleagues are in throughout the country.

In the post, he references an older CLASSIC post of mine which was recently updated.

Just a few comments about our situations. Screw Pharmacy Mike’s management. I have been in that situation. I’ve told those management to butt-the-fuck-out on many circumstances. I’ve pulled out my Pharmacy Practice Act statues and highlighted passages which gave me the right to tell them to butt-the-fuck-out. I make every effort to be nice and help every single person that comes in my pharmacy. Here’s how I want to be viewed: I want everyone to see my pharmacy as a bad ass American Bulldog. I’m loving. I’m caring. I’m a great animal and perfect best friend. I love those around me. But, I’m protective of my own — and especially protective of myself. I want dickheads to see me and realize that if they fuck with me, they might get the TEETH. You don’t want the TEETH. To function adequately as a pharmacy/pharmacist, you have to have patients that respect you because of the TEETH. I’m not talking about fear (even though some pussies out there have irrational fear of dogs and/or pharmacies). I’m talking about a humble, head-nodding respect that goes both ways. Don’t cross the dog and you won’t get the TEETH…you’ll only get superior pharmaceutical care.

Long, pointless metaphor — but you get the point…I hope anyway.

Secondly, fuck Pharmacy Mike’s State Board of Pharmacy. What a bunch of fucking hypocritic pricks. He’s completely right — he gives out that drug without a valid script on file and the patient dies, he loses his license and the pharmacy goes on probation. If that patient RESPECTED the pharmacy, he would have had the foresight to realize he was out of refills and called in his LIFE-PRESERVING prescription in a few days early. We’re not talking about a statin here — where he can miss several doses with no repurcussions. We’re talking about insulin. A bad diabetic, if going uncontrolled over the weekend, could wind up in the unit by Monday…

Let me also clarify my situation. I don’t own my pharmacy. I don’t have dictator-esque control of my pharmacy either. However, I do have my staff and my customer-base convinced that my pharmacy is a dictatorship. Acknowledgment of that fact is recognition of my TEETH if you will. My power over my place of business is largely based on growth and success. If I’m running my pharmacy with minimal problems, showing positive growth, and having no problems — I can do pretty much as I please with no intervention. This is compounded with the fact that my yearly wages are based on several factors. Pharmacists in my area could command as much as $60 dollars an hour. I, on the other hand, make only $50 per hour. In exchange for that, I receive a massive incentive-based bonus in December of each year. I’m not trying to measure dicks or anything here, but my bonus this year was around $38,000. So, the salaries are, in the end, very comparable. The difference is, I feel like I actually have an active role in earning my salary. Therefore, my corporate counterparts allow me massive leeway in making managerial decisions in the management of my pharmacy. They may make suggestions — I can implement them or I can tell them why I’m not going to implement them (and why my way is or will be better).

My bonus is based on a ton of things: generic substitution rate, percentage of growth, number of competitors and their projected growth, number of fills (new are worth more than refills), payroll for other store personnel (negative dollars if above goal), coupons used (less used is more money), success of the store as a whole (even our beer sales make me a little bit of money), and a few other things that escape me right now (complaints and my review count somehow as well).

Because of these facts, I take it upon myself to toss out (or somehow get rid of creatively — like ‘not having their medicine in stock’ — unethical? Yes, I know.) the trouble makers that don’t recognize the TEETH. I go ahead and show them the teeth. As Druggist2 said, 90% of your problems come from 10% of your customer base. Let’s get rid of those pricks and treat the other 90% of our customer base that much better. That will increase our efficiency and growth in the long run. The small amount we lose in lost sales from the pricks is minimal when you take into account the man hours spent dealing with them and the stress we get from them.

MERRY CHRISTMAS from
The*Angriest*Pharmacist and Brian Peppers!!

     Or Print it...
[email_link]

Popularity and Link Exchange

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as --Not Pharmacy--, Blogs I like

Hello all! I’ve been writing stories, anecdotes, rants to The *Angriest* Pharmacist since February 5th, 2007. So, for the last 10 months, I’ve been ripping people’s face off by being real, telling it like it is, and putting a little fire/passion into my writing. There’s been some great discussion and excellent emails as well as some pointless spam and meaningless hate mail with no basis. The popularity of this site as grown to extents that I would’ve thought were impossible for a mere pharmacist’s blog.

I switched domain providers in the middle of October, so all data prior to that concerning hits was lost. But since October 18th, this website has gotten over 55,000 unique hits *without* counting the various bots (like Googlebot, Lycos, etc.) that scour the internet for new pages/websites. That’s around 1200 each day!

The amount of page views is also off the charts. In that same time frame, I’ve seen about 100,000 page views. That means that most people viewed at least the main page plus one additional page/post on my blog. I’m lucky my hosting provider’s plan alots me plenty of bandwidth, otherwise I would have exceeded that each month and be forced to pay a fee for each megabyte gone over. I could double my traffic to more than 60,000 pageviews each month and still not hit my limit. I doubt I’ll ever get there.

That number is amazing to me — especially considering that this is what most would consider a “specialty” blog where the majority of posts won’t be understood or read by the vast majority of internet users. However, I’m sure a sizeable amount of those hits are people seeking drug information or medical advice. Some of them are also going to be repeat hits at different times (at least 10 minutes apart is how I have it set) whereas each one counts as a unique visit.

I am not looking to make any money off of my website. I don’t have the time to put into it to make any kind of profit worth my time. What I am looking to do is share this volume of potential readers with all medical blogs. If you’ll notice, the right most frame has a dropdown box on the right side at the very top. I read every one of those pharmacist blogs. Most of them have a return link here.

If you would like my to link to your webpage/blog in that drop down box, let me know. I’d ask that you return the favor and link to me, but it’s highly unlikely that I will ever check that you do so. So, if you want me to link you, click the contact link at the top of my page and shoot me a message with the name of your blog, the category it would likely be in, the URL, and your tagline. I’ll add it to my links as soon as possible. I don’t care if it’sa pharmacy blog or not — I’d just like it to be related to medicine in some way. If I get several that are in a different category from pharmacy, I will adjust the dropdown box to separate them from the Pharmacy/Pharmacist blogs.

On average, I’d say 10 hits per day leave this site to each one of those dropdown links — some get more, like Drug Nazi, but I’d be willing to bet that if I link you, you will see a few more hits each day. Just let me know…it will be a positive, mutual association.

Also, I’d suggest everyone register. You do this by clicking the “Register” link the right-most frame near the bottom. I’ve made some changes that allow you to comment without restriction if you are registered. All you are required to provide is a login name, email address, and password (which I can’t see - I can only delete). In the past, I’ve had to approve each comment 1 at a time as they come in. I’ve grown tired of that tedious process, so I’m relaxing the rules a bit. The login process should still keep the spam bots at bay. With registration, you will also get a short email each time a new post or page is added. I won’t ever share, post, or exploit your email. Nor will you ever get an email from me for any other reason except for a new post — so get to it!

[email_link]
     Or Print it...