One of the things, among many, that really bothers me about pharmacy is how students become interns. In all the states I have worked in (there are several) the interns are virtually allowed to do everything a pharmacist does under a licensed RPh's discretion.
I have no problem with this at all, it can be rather helpful.
What I do have a problem with is how some states decide who should be classified as an intern. One state's laws stated that a pharmacy student cannot be called an intern, or perform intern duties, until starting their second year of pharmacy school.
This seems perfectly reasonable to me. For the majority of pharmacy schools across the nation, the first year of pharmacy school is essentially review and groundwork knowledge before delving into the fun stuff. After one year of school, you really don't know a whole lot more than you do during your undergrad.
Disclaimer: I know I am not in pharmacy school, but this is what I have gathered from talking to people over the years.
Now what scares me is that some states allow an individual to claim intern status as soon as they are accepted to a program.
Think about it, individuals who haven't even started a program are now considered an intern. Consider the fact that a big chunk of incoming pharmacy students have virtually no pharmacy experience, and you may begin to see where this fear is arising from.
I have watched too many 'interns' struggle to take down new prescriptions or 'check' refills. One in particular would get Lipitor and Lisinopril or Hydroxyzine and Hydralazine mixed around all the time. The latter is at least close in spelling, but anyone with experience can tell one from another just from looking at the directions.
What further scares me is the 'white coat ceremony'. So you've been in school a month, learned how to spell the word pharmacy, and now you deserve a white coat to reward you for your hard work.
Huh?
Again, you don't know shit at this point. Why should you be christened with, what I consider, the honor of being rewarded with a white coat. You're not pharmacists, you haven't even started learning anything about pharmacy, so why should you be able to wear the professional badge of a white coat?
If anything, they should wait until the P2 year or, even better, until you graduate. I am not saying that you cannot wear a coat at work or for labs or whatnot. What I'm saying is don't have a ceremony glorifying an accomplishment you have not yet earned.
Tie those two together and you have the creation of the ultimate clusterfuck.
And I simply do not understand it. You think someone would be at least a little cognoscente of this fact and perhaps find a remedy.
Then again I may be the only one who has a problem with this...
17 comments:
You're definitely not the only one. I always loved having an "intern" rotate through our store or a staff technician hitting P2 and magically becoming an "intern" overnight. It really helped shine a giant spotlight on what a joke the whole thing is. The fact that they'd need to be 3rd or 4th year to come close to matching the knowledge of pharmacology I'd picked up from 7 years being a tech combined with their plainly obvious torment at having to be there a whopping 12-15 hours a week left a bad taste in my mouth as far as interns go.
Not to mention the most braindead, useless body could come into the pharmacy, contribute essentially nothing, and still get paid several dollars more per hour than me. Perhaps why I'm not working there anymore.
As a new pharmacist I remember getting my first white coat prior to starting classes. I thought the whole thing was kind of phony too, but the school claimed it was to "foster professionalism". I don't know if it really worked the way they thought it would.
I'm glad that, as far as I know, they didn't do white coat ceremonies in the 1970s when I became a pharmacist. But I think we should all experience
taking the Oath of Maimonides or Oath Of A Pharmacist. We should assume the obligation instead if the decoration.
Well, interns are allowed to do pretty much anything a pharmacist can do, but it has to be under that pharmacist's supervision. To me, that means it's the pharmacist's job to step in and prevent the intern from performing tasks he's not competent in.
If some pharmacist at your store knows that the intern can't tell the difference between Lipitor and Lisinopril, and lets the intern take new phone scripts anyway, that's just negligent.
funny because you don't know shit either (yet you act like you know everything)
-I'm an actual PharmD Candidate
funny because you don't know shit either (yet you act like you know everything)
-I'm an actual PharmD Candidate
EDIT: I was also a tech before pharm shcool
I never claimed to know anything, so obviously missed the point of the post.
My comment was in response to a combination of your other posts as well, not exclusively this one. You have a theme where you think you know more than other pharmacy applicants and interns in all aspects of pharmacy: from technical retail practices to PharmD curriculum to the state of the field itself. My question is how are you so sure you know so much relative to others? Perhaps others don't showboat obnoxious (and in your case fallacious) statements about pharmacy like you do? Perhaps others don't make a big deal out of trivial stuff such as the way pills are lined up in a bottle? You may be more of a pharmacy 'nerd' preoccupied with trivial stuff, but please don't imply that you are more passionate about it than others.
Look, I wish you the best (I truly do) and I hope you get accepted somewhere. I was never one of those competitive, ruthless applicants who wished failure on others. But please consider being a little less bitter (as inferred from your posts) and simmer down the tone of superiority. You seem very intelligent so don't let that attitude undermine your potential. Community pharmacy is much more than accurate, efficient, technical procedures; it requires compassion, professionalism, and sometimes sympathy.
Thanks for reading my comment and good luck in pharmacy school next Fall.
Realize that many of the posts made here have a certain stylistic element to them. You can't run a blog for 2+ years and post simple things. Ask any blogger and they'll admit that you hit a wall at a certain point and you have to almost turn into a characture (sp?) of your original intents. That does not mean this isn't truthful, it's just more pleasing to the reader.
Do I go overboard sometimes? You bet I do, and many times I do it purposefully to make things interesting. I say things I would not normally say.
I am bitter, I know I am. A big chunk of that has been work the past year and a half, but its more the fact that I do know a lot about pharmacy and I see far too many people who get into it and have no idea what it is about. I'm sure I'll be much more pleasant when I get out of the hell hole I work for.
If you think I'm lacking in compassion, professionalism and sympathy, than you obviously have missed some pretty big posts on here. How about my This Is How You Fix A Prescription post? Show me another ten people who would go out of their way like that? I am about as passionate of a person about this field as you can find which is why I have such a hard time when people act so obtuse towards it.
Just kind of irks me that something I care so much about can so easily be dismissed by my peers.
I appreciate your reply and I hope I did not disrespect you in terms of your pharmacy aspirations. I admit that I am not a regular reader of your blog and I may have rushed to judgment based on snippets of statements that were out of context. Nevertheless, we both have/had tremendous experience in community pharmacy and I bet that you, like myself, understand that first impressions matter in retail. A bad first impression from a pharmacist may intimidate a PT from seeking advice in the future, which is unacceptable considering pharmacists are the most accessible health care professionals. Likewise, as a unsuspecting first-time reader, I was irked by your so called 'stylistic element.'
Oh, the White Coat Ceremony... we had two, yes TWO of these colossal wastes of time at my pharm school. The first one happened shortly after pharm school started. We were merely presented with our coats at this one, didn't start wearing them till lab the following semester. Then, just before rotations we had another white coat ceremony where we put on our coats... which we had already been wearing to labs for three years.
The best part was how the deans went on and on about how both of these ceremonies were great honors and we should invite our families, blah blah blah... and then they schedule the damn things for 6:00 on a weeknight.
When I am in charge, white coat ceremonies will be the first things to go.
You're theoretically right that a first year intern really knows no more than a semi-trained pharmacy tech. As one of the former, it always astounds me to watch my classmates struggle with brand/generic names of top 50 drugs. The problem lies with the fact that, if you put the intern license at the beginning of P2 year, you still don't know hardly anything at the start of that year. I'm sure you're aware that a lot of states do have the late intern license, and in contrast in Tennessee certified technicians can do a lot of intern responsibilities (which a lot of them are plenty capable of doing, but I digress)
Like it was said, it should be the responsibility of the pharmacist who is signed on as their "preceptor" to regulate which intern tasks a student is ready for. When I got my license, it correlated with me transferring to a new pharmacy closer to school, with a pharmacist I'd never worked with before, and before I did anything he sat me down for 20 minutes and we discussed what I felt comfortable doing, and he judged for himself what he felt comfortable letting me do. And as a six year tech, I was able to take voicemails and give copies as well as any intern, and he agreed with me.
As counseling goes, I hardly know of any first years who would even consider doing it. I do a little bit with cold medicines, knowing that my pharmacist is right behind me listening in, and the first question I always ask is if there are any extenuating factors in the case - pregnancy, nursing, htn, even thyroid problems - in which case I retreat immediately to my pharmacist.
The problem isn't that the license is available, it's that interns are stepping beyond their boundaries and pharmacists aren't regulating them
I wanted to put my two cents in for Anon - I have only 4 years experience as a tech (I say only b/c Phathead has 7, but I pretty much know what's going on...) and the intern we had a couple years ago at my store was terrible. She didn't really know anything, she didn't know the computer system, she WOULDN'T do tech stuff and COULDN'T do pharmacist stuff, yet she was getting paid 5 to 7 dollars an hour more than the techs there. I have also worked with pharmacists who had never set foot in a pharmacy before rotations, and HATED their jobs. I would take a brand new pharmacist who had worked as a tech for years before becoming a pharmacist over experienced pharmacists who didn't know the tech's job any day of the week. Because - if the pharmacist worked as a tech before they worked as an intern, chances are they are going to be more understanding when the techs are swamped AND be able and willing to lend a hand if need be. Sorry for the long rant, but read context before you judge.
To Megan,
Your post is sort of irrelevant because I was a tech for 10 years before pharmacy school so I may have more insight than you and/or Phathead. What you said is nothing new to me.
Also to Megan,
You shouldn't necessarily fault me for caving into my first impression of the blog. Read my last reply to Phathead.
People would be so much happier without this sense of entitlement over others.
the pharmacy intern should not be registered as intern until they have completed their course of Dispensing lab and Pharmacy law and regulations.
The requirement of prescription label and OTC and prescription label requirement,etc
Before they are called Pharmacy Intern, student should know the basics from classroom, such as what informations are needed to get and give Transfers and Copies and familiar with top 200 or 500 meds before you walk in to Pharmacy.
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