Zombie Pharmacists

Those of you not in the industry may not know the hours of a typical pharmacist.  For those of you in it, I feel for you.  Pharmacists sometime are walking, talking, counting, typing zombies.

Well, the average chain pharmacy is open from 8 in the morning until 10 at night.  That's a full 14 hours.  I say full because the majority of pharmacists don't have the luxury of taking a couple of 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch because it is just too busy.   And god forbid we do decide to tell a customer that it will be ready in 30 minutes because the pharmacist is taking his or her lunch.  We all know too well that that will be the customer to call the 800 number and complain to the higher ups and then we get written up.

I used to work in a pharmacy in an urban area because I grew up not too far from there.  When I became a pharmacist and finally had some money, I moved to the suburbs to get away from the city life.  So my commute is about 30 minutes if there is no traffic.  However, I happen to work at a pharmacy that is close to the Lincoln Tunnel, Holland Tunnel, and George Washington Bridge, so my commute is more like 45 minutes to an hour depending on the day.  So my day actually starts at about 6:30 and usually ends at around 11:30. I remember one week, my partner had first had to attend a funeral and wake and then at the same time had gotten really sick, so since there was no one the district manager had to replace, I had to bite the bullet and work 6 days in a row.  So that was five 14 hour shifts and one 8 hour shift.  If you were one of my customers that week and I growled at you or dropped an f-bomb or two, my bad.

I myself used to work these hours at a store that did about 600 scripts a day.  I, like most pharmacists, have made mistakes.  It's tough juggling both being as accurate as possible with each and every prescriptions and churning out the 600 plus scripts I need to fill in what the corporation deems a "timely manner."  Not going to lie, but our definitions of a timely manner differ quite a bit.

I used to be the type of person that had a zest for working in a busy store.  Then I came to an important realization that Joe Schmo working at the pharmacy in Nowhere, USA fills about fills about 100 scripts per week and get paid just about the same as I do.  Also, when the annual review comes around, he gets a raise for being about to satisfy his 100 total customers, whereas I didn't receive a raise because my drive thru time was 5.6 seconds instead of 5.0.  So I got fed up and decided to go to greener pastures.

I know there are studies out there that show a correlation between how many hours in a shift and mistakes.  Why do most big chains ignore these studies?  Why is the public not demanding those that make pharmacists work 14 hours change their policy?  If their in existence to help their patients manage their medicine and improve overall health, then shouldn't their goal be to minimize errors?  But, unfortunately, they are in existence to please their stockholders and increase their overall wallets.  So the world of pharmacist zombies will continue.