Why will people wait for a doctor but want a RX in 20 minutes?!
Question: I am a Certified Pharmacy Technician and have been in retail pharmacies for 5 years now. I do not understand the people who come in and expect us to just "slap a label on a bottle" cuz they are in a rush. We are just as busy as your doctor, if not more busy because we also need to bill insurance, talk to people about what to buy or how to take their meds, call YOUR doctor who messed up writing the prescription or didnt realize you were on something that interacts with your medication. We need to do the data entry which must be verified it was entered correctly by a pharmacist who is busy with calls and consulting patients and then needs to be counted, bottled, labeled and bagged. For you and 100 other people all at once. Are people getting more impatient or are they just impatient at the pharmacy?
Answers: I am a Certified Pharmacy Technician and have been in retail pharmacies for 5 years now. I do not understand the people who come in and expect us to just "slap a label on a bottle" cuz they are in a rush. We are just as busy as your doctor, if not more busy because we also need to bill insurance, talk to people about what to buy or how to take their meds, call YOUR doctor who messed up writing the prescription or didnt realize you were on something that interacts with your medication. We need to do the data entry which must be verified it was entered correctly by a pharmacist who is busy with calls and consulting patients and then needs to be counted, bottled, labeled and bagged. For you and 100 other people all at once. Are people getting more impatient or are they just impatient at the pharmacy?
A lot of it comes from the way that big drug store companies try to maximize their profits. I worked for a major chain for 8 years as a CPhT, and I heard them describe drug stores as "convenience stores for women." Add to that the abominable "drive through" ( I notice that you didn't mention people wanting to "just wait here in my car" 'til their meds are ready) Despite everything that pharmacists are striving for professionally and trying their darndest to USE the complicated training in pharmacology (they get 8 semesters of pharmacology, I, in medical school, got 2), people see it as a "count and pour" environment. It's not helped by the "fast food" set up of many of these places, where you can see all the bottles and operations. I used to read trade magazines and scoff at pharmacists having 30-minute "counseling appointments" with patients, especially geriatric patients. Now that I'm practicing, I've learned how useful pharmacists can be.
Until CVS, Walgreen's, Rite Aide, Wal-Mart and the rest start treating their pharmacists like professionals, then customers won't think of them that way, and so the entire staff gets punished by the "30 minutes before close and everyone needs their birth-control and pain meds." In addition, people only care about the complicated web of safety and third-party payors when they fail.
I think people are willing to wait for doctors because we don't give them a choice, we can work in our offices and exam rooms, with calm and patience, and the support staff typically keeps the raving hordes at bay. When you're more accessible, though, like walking through an inpt unit, all of a sudden there are 10 people, all needing a sleeping pill, or a pain pill, or a hug..... Perhaps higher walls and more one way glass would help pharmacy staff keep their calm.
It's the same reason people would rather risk their safety by running a red light than wait the 30 seconds it takes to turn green again. People are impatient and want it NOW! I don't think it's just at the pharmacy, I think it's everywhere. We have gotten used to everything being as fast as possible and anytime we have to wait it is now an inconvenience rather than just a fact of life. They mix Jelly in the peanut butter containers now because apparently two bottles just takes too much friggin' time! People are getting lazier and more demanding and I think it's just going to get worse.
Duty of care !!
I never understood this either. My husband has a bunch of friends who are pharmacists (5 of his high school friends are pharmacists weird huh?) and I hear all about their horror stories. One of our friends got called a nasty racial slur for "taking too long" (she was dealing with the insurance company) by a little old lady! I also hear the stories about druggies bringing in fake/forged scripts...man some of those people are just crazy and stupid! Once my doctor messed up my prescription and my pharmacist kept apologizing...finally I told him to stop, it wasn't his fault it was my bonehead doctor didn't even know my file well enough to refill my script properly. My pharmacist was smart enough to catch it...and I'm sure you've caught doctor errors like that too and your customers should be grateful that your smart enough to fix their doctors error!
Anyway, I give you pharmacists a lot of credit. You all have a lot of responsibility your shoulders, rude customers, and crappy/long work hours ...which is why I always go out of my way to be nice to my pharmacist. I hope people will start being nicer to you!