pharmacist must be the most frustrating job in the world

[ichy]

I think in hospitals pharmacists have more of a say in the drug therapies that patients receive.

Yeah, hospital pharmacists will do things like round on patients (at least in the ICU) with doctors. From what I've heard doctors really value the input of a good pharmacist, but also complain that the quality of training they have varies wildly.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Retail pharmacists have the kind of job that the OP described. PharmDs can also work in hospitals or in research where the work is much more interesting, although the pay is significantly lower.

Actually they do more than the OP described, especially when it comes to a patient with multiple doctors all sending the Pharmacist prescriptions.

OP is ignorant.

 

[TheVrolok]

My understanding of medicine seems a lot more solid than yours since my suggested solutions always seem to work.

Simply put, nope.

In that other thread you said that pushing pills is not a doctor's job, and that my doctor is "bad" because he gave me a year supply of a medication I've been taking for the past 5 years instead of just giving 3 months at a time.

Yep.

If you had your way, everybody would need to see the doctor 30 times per year. Maybe they would only give 1 pill at a time.

Nope.

People would need to skip several hours of work every day just so you can "monitor" their condition. Doctors always seem to have this excuse. They want to see me every 3 months to make sure I'm not dead. Why?? If the medication makes me sick, I'll stop taking it. If it kills me while I feel great, then I don't care. I'd rather die happy than sit in a waiting room for half a day every 3 months.

Ignorant, inane.


You quite simply do not understand how it works. Your OP in this thread shows that you have no understanding of the role of a pharmacist outside retail stores like Walgreens or CVS. There are many pharmacists out there directly involved in patient care that communicate with physicians daily. In addition, there are in fact pharmacists that can and do prescribe/change medications. Often times in the US the laws vary by states, for example in Florida, Mass, Cali, etc. PharmDs do have the ability to write prescriptions in certain circumstances that again, vary by state law. You are free to keep ranting, but it would be nice if you at least had some idea about the things you're railing against.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I am not a medical practitioner, but i do distribute rohypnol to coeds on occasion

joking about raping girls, always classy

 

[The_Dude8]

I get my spcript filled at safeway, where I have for years. All the people have been replaced with some sort of asians that barely speak engrish.

If the asians barely spoke English, how do they read the complex name of the medicines?

 

[sixone]

If you think about it, this is one job where someone learns tons of stuff about the body and drugs, but absolutely NONE of it is ever used throughout their entire career.
-pharmacists, people who specialize in drugs, are not allowed to prescribe drugs
-pharmacists are not allowed to change the drug prescribed
-pharmacists are not allowed to change dosages prescribed

That pretty much cuts the pharmacist out of the loop. Their entire training is wasted. You could ask them very specific questions about drugs and maybe even figure out what drug you should be taking, but it's a complete waste of time because pharmacists do not talk to doctors and doctors never listen to patients. You can't go to your doctor and say "hey I want dexedrine because the pharmacist said it would work" because the doctor will tell you to go to hell. How dare you come in here and ask for drugs?

Any pharmacists here who can shed some light? What do you actually do at your job?

I have a pharmacist in the family, and worked in a pharmacy for several years during college. You've missed the mark, here. While they do learn everything you think they should, they use it constantly.

While they can't change the drug prescribed, they can contact the doctor and recommend changes. If the doc prescribes a brand name, and the patient flips out when they find out how expensive it is, the pharmacist will call the doc and ask for an alternate drug or generic.

If the doctor writes something goofy on the prescription pad (and it happens ALL the time), the pharmacist will call and find out what the patient should be getting.

They have to be able to discuss side effects and other problems - like telling your GF that her birth control pill might not work while she's taking an antibiotic for her UTI. Like telling people taking certain heart meds to limit intake of grapefruit/juice, and why.

Pharmacists save people from their own doctors every day.

 

[vi edit]

I guess you're just thinking about CVS pharmacists. Shouldn't be surprising given your rather skewed view of medicine in general, and your limited knowledge of how it works.

Yep. Hospital pharmacists are nothing like that. Multiple times a day an attending or a resident comes to my wife and says "So what should we do here.." My wife suggests best treatment, doc signs the drug order with "pharmacy to dose".

And when she's not doing that she's making calls back to Doctors asking them whey they prescribed particular drugs/combos of drugs and/or the doses they are on and how to start drug tapers.

And that doesn't even scratch the surface on the hours a single kinetics or coumadin consult can take.

 

[ShawnD1]

While they can't change the drug prescribed, they can contact the doctor and recommend changes. If the doc prescribes a brand name, and the patient flips out when they find out how expensive it is, the pharmacist will call the doc and ask for an alternate drug or generic.

It used to be this way up here, but not anymore. Doctors in my area were hourly paid government employees, so they generally did a good job and they would talk on the phone as part of their job. They get paid for the time, so why not. Eventually some genius thought doctors should not be paid hourly but by the number of patients they see. Anything involving telephones immediately stopped because suddenly that was the doctor's own time; they did not get paid for it. Instead of phoning with lab results, they say you need to come in to get the lab results. In the past, they would even refill prescriptions based on phone calls. They could look at your file then fax a new prescription to whatever pharmacy. Now I need to go in every time because government retards (or insurance retards if you're in the US) say doctors should not get paid for phone calls or faxes, and I need to go really god damn often because idiots like TheVrolok only give out 90 pills at a time. If you try calling a doctor, you will not get through. Since it's free time, they don't do that unless there's nothing left to do, no patients to see. As a result, pharmacists just give up. Generic versions of my medications exist but pharmacies don't seem to stock them since doctors avoid phone calls like the plague.

They have to be able to discuss side effects and other problems - like telling your GF that her birth control pill might not work while she's taking an antibiotic for her UTI. Like telling people taking certain heart meds to limit intake of grapefruit/juice, and why.

I don't think I've ever had a pharmacist ask me anything about medications or warn me about things. They just hand me a piece of paper that has all the details. I sometimes ask random questions just so the pharmacist feels useful.
Can I take this with alcohol? Does it interact with viagra or MAOIs? (I'm not taking either of these so the answer really doesn't matter)

Yep. Hospital pharmacists are nothing like that. Multiple times a day an attending or a resident comes to my wife and says "So what should we do here.." My wife suggests best treatment, doc signs the drug order with "pharmacy to dose".

That sounds like a satisfying job. Does she like it?

 

[sixone]

It used to be this way up here, but not anymore. Doctors in my area were hourly paid government employees, so they generally did a good job and they would talk on the phone as part of their job. They get paid for the time, so why not. Eventually some genius thought doctors should not be paid hourly but by the number of patients they see. Anything involving telephones immediately stopped because suddenly that was the doctor's own time; they did not get paid for it. Instead of phoning with lab results, they say you need to come in to get the lab results. In the past, they would even refill prescriptions based on phone calls. They could look at your file then fax a new prescription to whatever pharmacy. Now I need to go in every time because government retards (or insurance retards if you're in the US) say doctors should not get paid for phone calls or faxes, and I need to go really god damn often because idiots like TheVrolok only give out 90 pills at a time. If you try calling a doctor, you will not get through. Since it's free time, they don't do that unless there's nothing left to do, no patients to see. As a result, pharmacists just give up. Generic versions of my medications exist but pharmacies don't seem to stock them since doctors avoid phone calls like the plague.

Your experience does not determine the experience of everyone else, or even someone else.

I don't think I've ever had a pharmacist ask me anything about medications or warn me about things. They just hand me a piece of paper that has all the details. I sometimes ask random questions just so the pharmacist feels useful.
Can I take this with alcohol? Does it interact with viagra or MAOIs? (I'm not taking either of these so the answer really doesn't matter)

It doesn't take long to learn to hide from people like you.

 

[vi edit]

That sounds like a satisfying job. Does she like it?

Loves it for the most part. Part she doesn't enjoy at all is a couple god-mode physicians that have some of the worst patient care practices she's ever experienced. Their patient care plans have abysmal outcomes, fly in the face of any recently published studies and are just overall bad medicine.

And instead of administration cracking down on these guys they buckle because they are surgeons and bring a lot of patients in because of name recognition.

But as far as her role, what she does, and how her profession is respected in her units...she's very satisfied. She's single handidly saved the hospital millions in changing some protocols out to much more inexepensive meds with better outcomes and working with the units to improve charting(and thus reimbursement) of incredibly expensive IV meds.

The sky is really the limit in how much practical use a skilled clinical pharmacist can provide to an acute care facility.

 

[ShawnD1]

It doesn't take long to learn to hide from people like you.

Pharmacists get excited when I ask questions. Most people like being asked questions about their field of interest. I remember teachers always liked me because I would ask how things work instead of just memorizing everything.

The sky is really the limit in how much practical use a skilled clinical pharmacist can provide to an acute care facility.

Lovely. I'm not Asian but I'll be sure to lightly push my kids in this general direction :biggrin:

 

[OverVolt]

Yup, I know three pharmacists, and all three of them fits into this category. One of them even went to UCSF... the #1 pharm school. He doesn't know the meaning of anything. He once argued with me that hydrogen is defined as an atom with one proton and one electron. Then I brought up ions and isotopes. He just repeated his definition.

Thats because you were wrong lol. Hydrogen is defined as an atom with one proton and one electron.

Isotopes only change the number of neutrons, and a negatively charged hydrogen ion is called a hydride which is usually bound to a very electropositive metal.

 

[ShawnD1]

Thats because you were wrong lol. Hydrogen is defined as an atom with one proton and one electron.

For some odd reason, people think deuterium and tritium are different elements, but the logic used is not applied to any other element. Uranium 235 and 237 are both uranium, but hydrogen 1 and 2 are not both hydrogen?
Obviously yes they are both hydrogen. 1 proton = hydrogen.

I think the elements are only defined as the number of protons. The electrons are ignored. H+ is still hydrogen. H- is still hydrogen. It might have a different name (just like deuterium does) but it never stops being hydrogen.

 

[brainhulk]

Nightime Hospital pharmacist here.

I can change the drug prescribed.
I adjust doses based upon disease state, age, weight, renal function, hepatic function, response to therapy
md's ask me for advice on choosing drug therapy. And more often now they are too busy to properly dose medication and just leave it up to me.

However I do have to put up with dispensing duties that I agree a robot can do. But when the shit hits the fan, and time is of the essence would u rather trust a nurse or doctor looking stuff up in a textbook?

Just the other day some er doc wanted to paralyze a pt for emergency intubation with esrd with succinylcholine. Doing this could have raised their k+ to fatal levels and made a shitty situation even worse. Fortunately I objected to drawing it up and recommended a non depolarizing agent.

One time a nurse extravasated her levophed and the tissue started to necrose. The hospitalist didn't know what to do so i told the nurse to give phentolamine and how to give it.

I could go for tldr here, but u guys get the point. Plus I get to nef on the job

 

[yhelothar]

Thats because you were wrong lol. Hydrogen is defined as an atom with one proton and one electron.

Isotopes only change the number of neutrons, and a negatively charged hydrogen ion is called a hydride which is usually bound to a very electropositive metal.

*sigh*

Nope any atom with ONE proton is called hydrogen. An element is defined by its atomic number - the number of protons it has. Hydrogen is defined as an element with the atomic number of 1, not an atom with one proton and one electron. You can have any variation of neutrons and electron and it's still hydrogen.

 

[OverVolt]

*sigh*

Nope any atom with ONE proton is called hydrogen. An atom is defined by its atomic number - the number of protons it has. Hydrogen is defined as an element with the atomic number of 1, not an atom with one proton and one electron. You can have any variation of neutrons and electron and it's still hydrogen.

Hydrogen is tricky because H+ is just a proton =)

 

[shortylickens]

Hydrogen is tricky because H+ is just a proton =)

Yup, natural hydrogen is an isotopic ion.
Which is just all kinds of trouble. (Although, I have been told its the only reason the universe works).