How bad is it really? Am I being taken advantage of? My experience...

[BigDirty]

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[bolam]

your a second year pharmacy student and you find yourself staring at the pharmacist thinking what do you actually do???
Interesting.....

[sleather1]

Have you had any dispensing exams yet? I had them in my first year. Prescription checks for legality, dose appropriateness, interactions with other meds, record keeping, contacting prescribers for queries etc against the clock - one error and you fail the whole exam. Straight away appreciated why it takes so long. It's not so much running on your feet exhausting, but CAN be mentally draining if the particular individual can't cope under stress.

You mentioned that you do the methadone register? Very interesting...

[BigDirty]

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[BigDirty]

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[NR1990]

Saturdays are usually very quiet days because the surgeries are shut. Pharmacists that I've worked with quite often use a Saturday to catch up on the previous week and prepare for the one that's coming. If you've ever worked on a weekday you'll know how different they are to weekends. Sometimes it's just mental during the week which is probably why there are deliveries that haven't been dealt with. Another reason that weekends can be stressful is that if there's a problem with a prescription you can't just ring up the GP, because the surgery isn't open. Some days are worse than others, some Saturdays it feels like one problem after another. It also depends on the pharmacist. I've worked with people who just seem to get everything done with no fuss and other people that are always in a flap.

I agree that once you start dispensing you'll have more of an idea what's involved. I don't think you're being taken advantage of, the tasks you've mentioned are down to the counter assistant and I assume that's your job. I worked in quite a busy shop with a pharmacist and three Saturday staff (two pharmacy students) and once we were all competent the pharmacist left us to deal with all the out front stuff, dosette boxes, dispensing, weekly scripts, methadone etc. Obviously she checked everything she needed to and we went to her if we needed advice or there was a legal need. On a Saturday the pharmacist really should just need to stand and check, the staff are there to make that possible. I've also been involved in writing up the methadone register in the pharmacies I've worked in. If you're not comfortable then let him know, it's his responsibility. I was lucky that my boss was really nice so involved me in the dispensary side from the beginning but why not ask the pharmacist if he'll explain a bit about what he does or let you shadow him for a while?

[LeftArm]

A busy shop is one where there is a fairly high footfall of passing trade. This creates a flow of prescriptions but also the pharmacist is required to advise on OTC sales, prescription drug use, MUR's, NMS etc.
Meanwhile there is a large bundle of scripts collected from the local surgeries usually about three times a day. These will also create issues of stock availability, interactions, checking with prescribers, organising deliveries etc.
If you could stand in a locked room and just do prescriptions all day with no interuptions it would be an easy task (assuming they are all correct with no queries to prescribers). It is the things that break the flow that make a pharmacy busy.
A busy pharmacy is busy for everyone who works there not just the pharmacist but in the end it is the pharmacist who takes responsibilty in the event of an error.

Also noone is going to come onto a forum and post "I had a really easy day today, the surgery was closed for training and I only had about 25 scripts to check."

By the way, You are the troll and I claim my £5

[BigDirty]

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[dizzyb23]

Hi
Sounds like you've had a crappy time of things lately. This happens to us all so you're not on your own in feeling like this. I regularly come on this website to have a good moan and it helps me to chill out a bit and get some sound advice and opinions from others on here. I've been in pharmacy for many years both hospital and community and used to love working on a shop counter but those days are gone. I hate it now for many reasons. The job i've just left we did 700 + items a day. We were a teeny pharmacy/dispensary,no staff to speak of other than a Pharmacist and me with a couple of part time newby dispensers. It was hell on earth some days. So much pressure to do MUR's, NMS, FRPS, customer survey targets, cleaning, stock management, serving hundreds of people each day and in amongst all that we had dispensing obviously. It was awful and made us all physically ill. Saturdays were no better. In fact, it was worse as we had even less staff. Our Pharmacist just couldn't keep up. I've heard that this sort of thing happens in a lot of pharmacies.
I've worked for all the major chains in the UK and loads of independents and most pharmacists do their best to get everything done. However, i've worked with a few that wouldn't even get off their a**** to check. They parked their huge behinds on the chair and didn't move for the rest of the day. And one of these lazy so and so's became cluster manager recently!!!! Unbelievable. But these lazy people are a rarity. Maybe you could find another branch to work in. Or try hospital pharmacy. They do have their own set of problems too but it might suit you better. It's worth a try.....
Anyway, hope things get better for ya.

[sparkybw]

If it walks like a troll and talks like a troll then it usually is a troll in my experience.

You certainly have the arrogance and big headedness to be a pharmacist but you must be really stupid if you think that a few weeks of a Saturday job makes you an expert on community. You need to do some growing up, I think.

Good luck to the 'someones from the big ones' in tracking you down!