Ron Apke
Essay 1 Draft
January 22, 2013
Claudia Skutar
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is an expanding medical field around the world that links chemical and
physical science which results in the development of legal pharmaceutical drugs for the
improving a specific medical condition. Many people just think of “pharmaceuticals” as some
guy back behind the counter at Walgreens who counts pills and gives them to you when
realistically it is so much more. Pharmacists are responsible for drug therapy for all of their
patients which is becoming overly difficult. There is so much distance between doctors who
prescribe the drugs to the actual pharmacist who takes the prescription from the patient and
dispenses it.
“While one hears about a shortage of pharmacists, how long do you think a system that
pays a person a six-figure salary to repackage medicines will continue? It was recently reported
that remote dispensing laws are being considered in Wisconsin to ease the pharmacist shortage
and increase pharmacy service to underserved areas. The rapid growth of more efficient ways to
fill prescriptions through mail-order pharmacy does not bode well for pharmacists who are too
comfortable with the status quo (Schneider, 2).” This really got me to thinking “Is there really a
shortage of pharmacists? Will I be able to find a job when I get out of pharmacy school in 4
years?” Truthfully before reading this I was so optimistic about being able to easily find a job
once I graduated from pharmacy and now I’m starting to second-guess that thinking. There will
obviously always be a need for some pharmacists but will each pharmacy need two and three
pharmacies anymore. “There are now more than 350,000 board- certified pharmacy technicians
in the United States which exceeds the number of pharmacists (Schneider, 2).” I’m a pharmacy
technician currently but I am not board certified, we have 2 board certified technicians at my
pharmacy and they are allowed to do almost everything a pharmacist can do. There are obviously
a few exceptions but if there are more certified technicians than pharmacists I don’t see the need
for getting pharmacists. Schneider compares retail pharmacy to a burning bridge which means
you better get off the bridge before it’s too late. If his insight about the future of the pharmacy
industry is correct there are going to be a lot of future pharmacy graduates who are jobless.
A lot of people don’t refer to pharmacists as doctors but technically they are doctors of
pharmacists. To imagine that these doctors could be jobless out of college is unbelievable. To
imagine one of those jobless grads could be me is just flat out scary. The thought of me putting 8
years of hard work in school and a couple of hundred thousand dollars into my education and
then could end up without a job really freaks me out. “We are certainly not the first to have our
“business” threatened by change (Scneider, 2).” This change consists of robots dispensing drugs,
in order for robots to be allowed to perform the same tasks as pharmacists there will have to be
laws changed to allow this. However Phillip Schneider mentions in this article that there has
been talk about this for years now. As a pharmacy technician I hear a lot of talk about all of this
and there does seem to be some real fear in my coworker’s voices when talking about their job
security. I work at Kroger’s pharmacy and I have been there for just under a year, Kroger’s
around us are beginning to get robots to dispense drugs which are not the pharmacist’s job, it is
us technician’s jobs. I don’t plan on being a pharmacy technician for the rest of my life but some
of my coworkers who do not have college degrees and do not plan on getting a degree will be
severely affected by the robotic dispensing. We have talked to some of the other stores who have
these robots and there has been some cutting of technician hours. At my Kroger we have not
heard about if or when we will get a robot but it is only a matter of time since they have been
successful at saving the company money everywhere else.
“One vision leads me to the title of this lecture- pharmacy without borders. What are our
borders? They include physical isolation of pharmacists within healthcare, organizational
structures based on departments and disciplines, parochial and self- serving aims within the
health care professions, and a chasm between practice and science (Schneider, 4).” The isolation
between pharmacists within healthcare is actually talking about the physical separation between
pharmacists and the rest of the health care system. If a patient goes to the doctor and gets a
prescription for let’s say thyroid problems. They then may wait a couple of days while holding
on to the prescription then finally go to the pharmacy and get the prescription filled. If the patient
has brought a prescription there from a different doctor before and there is some sort of reaction
with the thyroid medication the patient will not be able to take that medication. A pharmacy staff
member would then have to contact the doctor and it could end up taking days before hearing
back. Now it has gone at least a week with a patient not being on a medication for a fairly serious
medical condition.
This happens all the time to us in the pharmacy and the problem is that the pharmacist
and the doctor work in two separate buildings and contacting one another can be very difficult
most of the time. The best solution to this is by having pharmacies inside each doctor’s office.
This will not only help the communication between pharmacist and doctor but it will also be
much more convenient for patients. A patient will be much more likely to get their medication
right away if this was the case.
Even in hospitals where there are pharmacies it is a serious problem. “In hospitals, more
than 27% of pharmacies- 44% of those with 300-399 beds and fully 57% of those with at least
400 staffed beds- are located in the basement, physically separated from patients, their medical
information, and their healthcare provider (Schneider, 4).” This tells us that the separation
between healthcare provider and pharmacist is not only present when a patient is seeing their
primary health care provider. It is also present when they go to the hospital for a possible
emergency. Even with the pharmacy being in the same building as the healthcare provider there
is still a clear separation as Dr. Schneider states. Without easy access to their a patient’s medical
information it becomes hard for them to do their job effectively.
I went to the hospital a few months ago due to a hernia problem and the doctor gave me a
prescription for some oxycodone for the pain if I recall correctly. I didn’t think it would be any
problem getting this. I went down to the pharmacy which yes, was in the basement and I gave
them the prescription. I could tell there was something wrong so I asked what the problem was.
They said the doctor forgot to sign the prescription so they would have to call up there and get it
authorized. They called the main desk of the hospital and asked if they could talk to my doctor.
The pharmacy technician was told he was in surgery and it would be at least an hour until he
would be out. I decided to wait and it ended up taking and hour and 45 minutes for the
prescription to be authorized. Obviously I wasn’t happy, I wondered why this happened. Now
after reading this scholarly article by Doctor Schneider I realized that isolation of pharmacists
from health care providers is a real problem.
“Finally, we need to bridge the gap between the basic sciences and practice in pharmacy.
(Schneider, 6)” High schools and even the majority of science do not really hit anything about
pharmaceuticals in their basic chemistry classes. Even when pharmaceuticals are a huge part of
chemistry and a very important part in the everyday lives of people like you and me. I feel like
with how big of a part prescription drugs are in our lives, we should be learning about them once
our mind is developed enough to understand it. “For example, before I left the college of
pharmacy at OSU, we planned to have a regular college wide seminar for all graduate students
and faculty. (Schneider, 6)” This is a simple way to bridge the gap, when you in college just
identify yourself as a science grad student instead of specifying pharmacy. This will help bridge
that huge gap between pharmacy grad students and everyone else.
Overall I think pharmacy is a great profession to get in to but there are some precautions
nowadays because of the projected decrease of available jobs over the next few years. However I
truly believe that all the hard work I am currently putting in at school it will pay off and I will
have a very successful career as a pharmacist and really enjoy it. If I really thought I wouldn’t be
able to get a job out of school then I probably would switch my major but I have belief in my
self. There will also be some changes in the pharmaceutical field over the next 5 years where
new types of jobs will be available for doctorates of pharmacy.
Schneider, Phillip. "Pharmacy Without Borders." Am J Health- Syst Pharm.. 65. (2008): n. page.
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