what do these guys do anyway?? I mean it just seems like they read the paper, then they go and fill the bottle with pills... does this really require an advanced degree?

11/16/2005 11:46:13 PM

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos079.htm

i'd want to know that the person filling my prescriptions is knowledgeable in the chemical/biological sciences and can tell me what a drug does and how it might interact with other medicines.

i'm pretty sure they more than earn their money, at that

11/16/2005 11:53:20 PM

nah, that can't be true... I'm pretty sure they just read the little slip of paper and fill the bottle

11/17/2005 12:12:20 AM

"i'd want to know that the person filling my prescriptions is knowledgeable in the chemical/biological sciences and can tell me what a drug does and how it might interact with other medicines."

Why is a person needed for this? Are machines not perfectly capable of being better than a human at this job?

Can a computer not offer generics advice, etc.

11/17/2005 12:14:30 AM

no each person is different and plus doctors make mistakes. They also mix certain medicines like creams etc at the pharmacy. Plus in this day and age people are in and out of the doctors office and they barely have time to ask questions. The pharmacist is often the one people go to to asks questions about their medicine and or health complications. Now lawyers are another story. Lying money hungry bastards.

11/17/2005 12:19:07 AM

do you really want a computer to fill your prescriptions? i like the fact that a real person can use that thing called common sense (which computers lack) that can say "oooh, wait a second....this isn't supposed to be 500 mg of drug X...this is supposed to be 300 mg of drug Y. they are the same size and shape, so that machine couldn't've differentiated"

and besides, you have to be highly trained to decipher a doctor's handwriting

[Edited on November 17, 2005 at 12:21 AM. Reason : a]

11/17/2005 12:19:48 AM

Try working in a pharmacy for awhile and see what a good pharmacist can do.

Yes, computers could replace shitty pharmacists (and there are automated drug-dispensing machines for sale).

A good pharmacist, though, knows the drug interactions without needing to look them up. On top of that, a lot of times it comes to down to the physician's/pharmacist's discretion--not everything is so cut and dry as "never give drug A with drug B" (and incidentally, that lack of black & white definition is exactly why sites like WebMD are no substitute for a real physician). A good pharmacist can also discuss OTC medications and drug side effects with a patient, and provide advice on when it's necessary to go discuss them with your doctor.

11/17/2005 12:23:12 AM

Quote :

"A good pharmacist, though, knows the drug interactions without needing to look them up. On top of that, a lot of times it comes to down to the physician's/pharmacist's discretion--not everything is so cut and dry as "never give drug A with drug B" (and incidentally, that lack of black & white definition is exactly why sites like WebMD are no substitute for a real physician). A good pharmacist can also discuss OTC medications and drug side effects with a patient, and provide advice on when it's necessary to go discuss them with your doctor."

This man is right.


Both my parents were pharmacists.

They hated it.

I wouldnt recommend it, its a very stressful field. I worked in a pharmacy for 3 years before you ask.

If you think its easy, hop on the 5 year program at UNC, its the best in our state by far (cambell come the fuck on).

You will make over 75k a year, the day after you graduate.

Dont tell me i didnt warn you.

Quote :

"do you really want a computer to fill your prescriptions? i like the fact that a real person can use that thing called common sense (which computers lack) that can say "oooh, wait a second....this isn't supposed to be 500 mg of drug X...this is supposed to be 300 mg of drug Y. they are the same size and shape, so that machine couldn't've differentiated" "

Fill, and enter into the computer system are two different things. Computer machines do fill prescriptions. The rph's enter and read the orders. I would say fetching and putting a pill in a bottle is less then 15% of a (hospital scenario) pharmacists day. They hire college dropouts and community college graduates for that.

[Edited on November 17, 2005 at 12:30 AM. Reason : .]

11/17/2005 12:28:07 AM

My mom teaches pharmacy, and I worked in a drugstore for five years. When I started there, we had two great pharmacists--all the customers loved them and they did wonderful work. Later they both quit to take higher paying jobs with fewer hours, and the number of mistakes went way up with the crappy replacements we received. It's very dangerous not to have a solid pharmacist filling your prescription--the computers didn't catch these things, incidentally.

Retail pharmacists make good money. Currently you can make $100,000/year right out of pharmacy school, if you're willing to sign a 10-year contract. But the hours totally blow and people treat you like shit.

11/17/2005 12:30:52 AM

^

If you work retail, you got some balls. And a 10 year contract is insane.




[Edited on November 17, 2005 at 12:36 AM. Reason : .]

11/17/2005 12:31:32 AM

Quote :

"Now lawyers are another story. Lying money hungry bastards. "

Yeah fuck some lawyers...

11/17/2005 1:06:16 AM

11/17/2005 1:07:10 AM

a recent developmenet in pharmacies is that all pharmacists require pharmD degrees, the pharmacy equivalent of a phD

11/17/2005 1:16:38 AM

PharmD is a 4 year professional degree. The days of 5-year pharmacy degree is over.

11/17/2005 1:23:21 AM

Yeah, back in the day you could get the BS in pharmacy and practice. Doesn't work like that anymore.

11/17/2005 1:30:44 AM

http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=364720

11/17/2005 1:44:42 AM

Sounds like the money for a pharmacy work is not good compared to many engineering fields. 4 years extra schooling and you only start at 75-100k? A BS in engineering + 5 years experience can get you that and more, easily ( I guess it depends on your talent, really).

[Edited on November 17, 2005 at 2:03 AM. Reason : sdf]

11/17/2005 2:03:27 AM

You can make much more than that as a pharmacist, too, just not in retail work.

It's about the guarantees.

With a four-year engineering degree and five years of experience, most people won't be making over 60k/year. Some will be making much more, but not most.

With a four-year college degree and a three-year PharmD, you're guaranteed to have the option for an immediate $100k.

And besides, that's nothing compared to some jobs. If you become a family physician (4 years of college + 4 years of medical school + 3 years of residency), you have to have a very, very good practice to break six figures. It's just not all about the money.

[Edited on November 17, 2005 at 2:21 AM. Reason : ]

11/17/2005 2:19:28 AM

^I think you are lowballing your engineering numbers. For example, salary.com puts the median salary for a programmers with 4-6 years of experience at 70k. Programers are on the low end of the engineering stuff, too. SW engineers get more.

However, salary.com does say that Pharm is around 90k, so I guess that's better than engineering. Not better than what I will be getting for engineering work in a couple of years, though

11/17/2005 3:04:47 AM

my dad is a pharmacists...

so i love 'em

11/17/2005 4:05:10 AM

in some cases, they're refusing to fill "morning after pill" prescriptions

11/17/2005 7:16:14 AM

^I don't get why people are making such a big deal about that. Just take your prescription to the pharmacy across the street.

11/17/2005 8:07:59 AM

^^ Even better, out in the midwest some of them refuse to fill birth control prescriptions (for anybody). I wanna know where those particular folks gtfo.

Not that i have anything against pharmacists, i think the good ones are great to have around.

11/17/2005 8:23:40 AM

Quote :

"in some cases, they're refusing to fill "morning after pill" prescriptions"

Quote :

"I don't get why people are making such a big deal about that. Just take your prescription to the pharmacy across the street."

One of my friends had that scenario recently, but she lives in Louisburg so she had to make an emergency trip to Raleigh. I can see how plenty of people without cars and cash will end up creating welfare babies as a result of this type of thing. Pretty fucked up in my opinion. They'll give drugs to pillheads, but they won't give a pill to someone who had a condom failure.

And all of this talk about how a computer can't make decisions as well as a pharmacist just makes me want to hire some pharmacists and some programmers to develop a solution that can. It's not that it can't be done...It's just that it hasn't.


[Edited on November 17, 2005 at 9:35 AM. Reason : s]

11/17/2005 9:28:48 AM

^uh, most pharmacists (I would say more than 99%) do not refuse to fill birth control. I don't know why people are making such a big deal out of a minority portion of the profession. I'm sure that if the particular pharmacist refused to fill your prescription (which is totally within his/her legal rights), you could just come back at another time when another pharmacist is working, and get it filled. You don't even have to go to another pharmacy.

11/17/2005 10:16:48 AM

^ It wasn't birth control. It was the morning after pill. As in, if she didn't get it there is a decent chance that she would get preggers and have another kid to take care of. I don't think waiting around until later in the day or the next day in hopes that another pharmacist will fill the prescription is really an option.

11/17/2005 11:33:22 AM

^don't blame it on pharmacy, blame it on religions. They don't teach you that stuff in pharmacy.

11/17/2005 12:41:56 PM

I blame it on the pharmacist and the pharmacy that allows them to force their opinion on their clients. People have to take responsibility for their own actions.

11/17/2005 12:59:11 PM

my beef with the whole morning after pill thing is more because of the principle of the matter than of what they're refusing to fill.

yes, it's fucked up that something that needs to be filled within 24-48 hours isn't being filled, and that time is precious if you want to prevent the pregnancy. Also, you're a pharmacist, not a doctor. Your job is to FILL PRESCRIPTIONS. If you want to make decisions, go to fucking med school and become a doctor. If you don't want to fill prescriptions, QUIT YOUR PHARMACY JOB.

Consider this - a christian scientist becomes a pharmacist. Christian scientists don't believe in medicine. What if a whole slew of them decide to cause problems by getting jobs at places like target and walmart that aren't firing pharmacists for not filling out morning after pill prescriptions? They could, using that logic, refuse to fill ANY prescriptions and still keep their jobs.

Now, I'd be willing to bet that walmart or target would fire them for filling out a percaset prescription or something like that, even though it's EXACTLY hte same thing - using your religious beliefs as an excuse to not do something you're supposed to do: in this case, filling out the prescription. If walmart would fire a christian scientist for not filling out a percaset prescription but won't fire someone else for not filling out the morning after pill, that's pretty hypocritical, but I bet that's how it would go down.

11/17/2005 1:03:18 PM

While I agree that pharmacists shouldn't force their religious views on other people, pharmacists should have the right to refuse any prescription they don't want to fill. It's their licenses on the line here, they could say that they believe the prescription is "fake", and thus wouldn't fill it. That is a totally legal reason to not fill a prescription.

11/17/2005 1:22:58 PM

Nobody said they should fill prescriptions that they think might be forgeries.

What if they denied AIDs treatments because they believe most people with HIV get it from sinning? Would anyone even argue that they have the right to do that?

11/17/2005 1:27:54 PM

^^ wtf? You seriously think a pharmacist shouldn't be fired for refusing to fill a prescription?

I guess you also think janitors shouldn't be fired for not mopping? And bank tellers shouldn't be fired for refusing to make your deposits and withdrawals?

11/17/2005 2:45:43 PM

^ok, you need to read the NC board of pharmacy law. It says the pharmacist has the right to refuse to fill any prescription that he/she deems suspicious. With that said, a pharmacist can use that reason to legally refuse any prescription he/she doesn't want to fill.

11/17/2005 2:48:49 PM

I know they can refuse any prescription that they think is suspicious.

You are ignoring the obvious ethics question of anyone who would LIE about their reason for not filling a prescription.

And you are also ignoring the strong possibility that their real reason for not filling those prescriptions will come out eventually.

Do they not have a responsibility to report it to the police if they feel that a prescription might be fake?

How hard is it to call the doctor and verify a prescription?

Don't you think somebody will eventually notice when a pharmacist ALWAYS denies the morning after pill for that reason?

But it probably doesn't matter, because most of the people that are taking a stand against the "morning after" pill aren't so spineless that they lie about what they are doing.

11/17/2005 2:59:41 PM

This is a hot topic in pharmacy right now, but I fail to see the relevancy in this, because this only about less than .1% of those who practice in the profession.

11/17/2005 3:03:10 PM

One in a thousand? How did you make that number up?

11/17/2005 3:11:48 PM

just look up how many case of pharmacist being reported for not filling prescription, then divide it by the number of practicing pharmacists in the nation. The number comes out to be a lot less than .1%. Take into account the number of unreported cases, .1% is a very good estimate.

11/17/2005 3:14:07 PM

Ok. How many cases did you come up with and how many pharmacists are there?

11/17/2005 3:15:26 PM

do your own research.

11/17/2005 3:50:15 PM