What is important

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as Just a question, Patient Education, Salutations

Who are you?

It’s a very pertinent question. It can be answered in a plethora of different ways. The way each person answers the question tells us a lot about them. It tells us where the priorities lie, what they think about themselves, their career, what they’ve done with their life, and perhaps even where they are going.

One could answer this question several ways:
I’m a pharmacist. — Tells us about a person’s career or career path.
I’m a man/woman. — Tells us of their gender role (obviously). They also think their manliness/femininity personifies them.
I’m a husband/wife. — Tells us the most important thing in their life is their relationship with their S.O.
I’m a (insert religion). — Tells us that their relationship with a higher power is important to them.
I’m a son/daughter. — Tells us they value family. They probably have a good relationship with their parents.
I’m a father/mother. — Tells us they have children and they are one of the most important things in their life.
I’m a brother/sister. — Again, tells us they value family and probably have a close relationship with their siblings.
I’m a Brother/Sister. — This one could tell us they were involved in a Fraternity and valued it and the relationships they forged from it.
I’m a [pharmacy] student. — Tells us where they want to go with their life. Their aspirations.

You see, we can learn a lot about someone with just a few words — with some assumptions and clever associations. But, what’s the most important thing about someone? That’s very easy. Do you know it?

THEIR NAME! A person’s name epitomizes who they are. If you know someone’s name, you may not know everything about them the statements above can tell us, but you have a way to get that information — an ‘in’ so-to-speak. Not knowing someone’s name — or forgetting it — can be a very embarrassing situation. I do all I can to remember the name of every person that comes into my pharmacy. I think every Pharmacist and Technician should. Not only does it help us ensure the right person gets the medicine, it lets the person know that you care WHO they are and not just WHAT they are buying or HOW much they are spending.

Do whatever you need to do to remember everyone’s name. Write it down. Say it ten times in your head while looking right at them. Take a mental picture. Do whatever works! Simply by announcing someone’s name as they enter the pharmacy pretty much guarantees you a customer/patient for life. (”Hey James [or Mr. Smith]! What’re you up to today?” — or — “Hey John! How is that new Blood Pressure medicine working?” [with respect to patient privacy, of course])  It also ensures that you will probably get the benefit of the doubt should you ever make a mistake or screw the person over by accident. That personal relationship will help make sure that cool heads prevail, and it also will assure that angry patients see you as a human, with a name, that can make mistakes. But, as a human, you are allowed to be remorseful of those mistakes and apologize….all from knowing something as simple as someone’s name.

So, readers, I ask you this, WHO ARE YOU?

Winning the meth battle

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as Work Sucks

Are we winning the meth battle? The current poll asks whether Pseudoephedrine would be better served as a legend (Rx Only) product rather than its current Behind-The-Counter (BTC) rating. I figured that the Combat Methamphetamine Enforcement Act (CMEA) was little more than a bother to those cooking methamphetamine. Since pharmacies are connected from chain to chain, PSE bulk buyers can merely go from one chain to another, buying their limit at each store. While it takes considerably longer than buying 6 at one store (as they could in the late 90s and early 2000s), I figured they were still getting what they needed.

A reader just emailed me the following link: http://www.startribune.com/local/20166249.html

And no — it’s not the Star Magazine you see at the grocery store checkout line…:-)

Jabberheads

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as Cellphone, Engrish, Patient Education, Rude, Stupid People, True Story, Work Sucks

Check out the pharmacy blog aggregators — All your pharmacy blog goodness compiled and listed on one page for you: http://dumbmedicine.com/?p=144


At about 2:30pm today, a lady brought a prescription to the counter. I approached her, said hello, and immediately glared at the cellphone, which is now synonymous with American Culture, smashed against her ear. When cellphone talkers approach my counter, they get no sympathy from me. I’m not courteous of their conversation because they are on MY time. Anyway, I asked this lady her birthday, as she turned away and started to scamper off and chatter some more, and she had the nerve to turn, roll her eyes at me, and say, “12-15-67″ in a tone of voice that would lead me to believe that I was bothering her…can you imagine that…me…bothering her…

I have a sign at my pickup window that says, “For your safety and other patient’s privacy, please finish all cell phone calls before approaching the counter.” Some people completely ignore it. Some of my techs have the guts to call people on it, others don’t — some don’t give a shit either way. Most guests will close their phone as they read the sign.

This woman continued her conversation the entire time I filled her Metronidazole 500mg po TID #24. That usually doesn’t bother me in any way. Had the woman came in with another person and they had a conversation outside the pharmacy I wouldn’t give a shit — what’s the difference? However, it does irritate me that I can only hear one side of the conversation — the human brain wants to know both sides. If it only hears one, it gets confused and either tries to fabricate the other half of the conversation OR the person gets angry…like most people when someone is loudly talking on a cell phone in a public place.

As I finished the prescription, I walked to the register to ring the woman out. She continued the conversation. I glanced back at the sign — making it pretty obvious that she should hang up. She continued the conversation.

“Do you have any questions?”
“Hol’ on jus’ a minute…” (Into the cellphone)
“Do the directions be on the bottle?”
“Yes, ma’am — it’s three times a day. There’s also a handout in there for you to read if you want to learn some more about the medicine. There is one other thing we need to talk about…”
“Nuh uh…no she din’t…are you fo’ reaaaal? Ohh my wooooorrrrrrrrrrrddd……” (Obviously into the cellphone)
“What? Huh? You say sumdin to me?”
“Yes, ma’am. There’s something important I need to tell you about your medicine.”
“Aww…okay”
“Girl lemme hit you back in a minute. Bye…” (Into the cellphone)
“This medicine has a pretty severe interaction with alcohol. Even just a small amount of alcohol could make you very sick. I cannot emphasize enough that you should avoid alcohol for the entire time you are taking this medication and even a few days after you are finished with the last dose.”
“S.O.S. please some one help me. It’s not healthy for me to feel this way. Y-O-U are making this hard, I can’t take it, see it don’t feel right,” blared from the woman’s phone (a song by current hip-hop artist Rihanna).
“Hello…girl, I’m talkin’ to dis pharmacisss. Lem me call you back afta while…Bye.”
“Okay, what?”
“Don’t drink any alcohol while your taking this medicine.”
“Ohh. I don’t drank…”
“Okay. Good. Do you have any other questions? [No] Okay then. Thank you. Come see us again…”

Does this story infuriate you all as much as it did me? I mean, what if I had to tell her something REALLY important. She may have not caught any of it…But, she was 100% aware of something scandalous the caller was talking about…

I didn’t have my jammer with me today, otherwise her phone service would have magically started to fail as I was talking to her. I took it home as I was off for two days. I don’t want to leave it at work in case there’s a raid or something…:-)

Now, before I get any hateful comments about it — this lady spoke exactly like I wrote her words…in ebonics. I’m not trying to be racist, ethnicist, or any other time of -cist you all can dream up. I hate it when people butcher the English language — regardless of who they are. I try and speak perfect English. While I type in a very odd manor — as if I’m keeping everything as one continuous thought (using dashes and ellipses) — I speak very well. Hearing the language butchered irritates me…

Cryptic Proverbs

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as Work Sucks

I’ve recently had a creepy email exchange with a man named Michael from the Philadelphia area. He’s one of those cyclist freaks still pissed off about the recent spat I had with them. You can see his craptastic website at TrophyBikes.com — Anyway, here’s our exchange.

Recently saw a comment by a novelist/editor.

it went something like:

“That which is written without effort is generally read without pleasure.”

sincerely,
Michael

This little comment, of course, pissed me off. So, I fired off a quick reply - fully intending him to reply with a tirade…leading me to tear him apart in a post.

What the heck is that supposed to mean?

Are you saying I put no effort into my writing and it sucks, or that
you don’t enjoy it, so therefore I put no effort into it?

Either way, you’re wrong…very wrong.

Here’s another stupid proverb he replied with:

OK, here’s another:

Well, I hope you check back because I hope you can see this post. I want to begin by saying that I resent your first comment…”That which is written without effort is generally read without pleasure” — I’m sorry that you dislike my writing…actually, no I’m not. You aren’t in pharmacy. You have likely never worked in a pharmacy. You probably won’t ever work in a pharmacy. This site isn’t geared for you. You have no business being here — reading the vast majority of these posts. You don’t see me running to your little bicycle website bitching about how there’s nothing there for pharmacists. I wouldn’t waste my time reading a bicycle blog — because I would get no pleasure out of it. That does NOT mean that the writing sucks — or that the person writing it has no passion on the subject matter.

How smart are you?

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as Work Sucks

We all know that pharmacists are intelligent. Pharmacy school isn’t easy. But, how smart are we? Do you know your actual IQ? Have you ever been tested? Do we have any MENSA Pharmacists out there?

I got tested in 1st grade. My IQ was registered at 126. I vaguely remember the experience. I remember going to a lady’s house and spending the entire day with just her — taking a series of tests but they seemed like games to me at the time. The only real test I remember was being shown a picture of a man walking down the street in the rain and being asked to identify everything wrong with the picture. So — he was holding his umbrella rather than covering himself. The stop sign was shaped like a triangle. The sun and the moon were both showing in full. Stuff like that. Of course, that’s a test performed over 25 years ago on a child. Is that still applicable now? Who knows….[Note: I know the results of the test because it's in my High School scrapbook -- not because I'm a weirdo.]

I found an IQ test online that I  believed to be rather reputable. It takes 40 minutes to complete and it is simple at first. However, it quickly escalates in difficulty…to the point where the last 3-4 questions I had absolutely no clue as to what the answer was. I still felt pretty good about the test. My result was 130. I, of course, didn’t take a screenshot of the result because I’m a retard. The test was rather frustrating, so I don’t want to do it again. I may though — to see if I can better my score. I’m sure that the questions are different each time. If they are not, I wouldn’t respect the results. If I take it again — I’ll post a screenshot.

Anyway, take the test. Let me know what your results are! Lets see how smart pharmacists, technicians, et. al are! Post your job as well.

It is mostly a test of spatial relationships, shapes, and such. I’ve heard that these types of IQ tests are biased — favoring men for whatever reason. We shall see…

http://www.iqtest.dk — Note: this link doesn’t work in Firefox for whatever reason (It crashed my browser every time). I had to dust off Internet Explorer to take the quiz. If you have a ridiculously high score that no one would believe (idiot savant type stuff), email me a screenshot. I’ll host it and post it for you.