Work

Today's question (courtesy of The Cafe of the Cosmic Dance) is: What do you do for a living?

I'm a pharmacist. I currently work in a retail setting, though I've been a hospital pharmacist as well. When I was a senior in high school I was at a loss as to what I wanted to study when I got to college. There were a few things, though, that I did know- science and math were my main interests, and I wanted to be able to get a job with whatever degree I obtained. There was, you see, a recession going on in the late '70s, and stories abounded of young folk who spent years getting a degree that was worthless in the workplace.

I encountered a representative from Albany College of Pharmacy at a career fair, and the rest is history.

It is a career that serves me well, and has seen me through the worst recession in recent history... the money's good, and the work suits me well after a fashion, but some days it beats the stuffing out of me. And a little bit of my soul dies.

Should work do that?

“Compared to other healthcare professionals, pharmacists answer and make more telephone calls, give more FREE professional advice, and ring more cash registers. They personally re-bill and adjudicate insurance claims, and they may deal with more drug abuse/law enforcement issues.

They do all this while supervising cashiers/technicians dealing with client/patient (“customer” in retail lingo) complaints, putting up orders, making orders, performing corporate paperwork according to company policies and procedures, and... oh, I forgot... reading, interpreting, and checking the accuracy of prescriptions.

And let us not forget checking for drug interactions and allergies, and verifying dosage forms, correct dose, amount, direction and appropriateness of drug therapy on hundreds of prescriptions per day while counseling patients on how best to take these medications, any of which could kill or injure under certain circumstances."

-excerpt from Consequences of Working in the Fishbowl by Michael J. Schuh, BS, PharmD, MBA, Drug Topics, page 78, 12/2009