Hello there! Before you read my article I would just introduce a little of me. I am a pharmacist by profession and about four years in practicing my chosen career. I am a pharmacist in one of the community drugstores in MetroManila, which is near hospital. I do a lot of work everyday. My work includes maintaining the quality of stocks, storage, administrative work, liaison and etc. My function also encompasses the dispensing or filling customers' prescription/s, procuring and receiving deliveries, engaging with salesmen and few detailmen, pricing and many more. It is my task also to keep the pharmacy in good status within the policy and regulation that FDA and PDEA are imposing.
I do some counseling and interrogation with some patient but always that concept of being pharmacist is elusive within my practice. But still I tried to talk and advice patient sometimes, whenever their is a need of it or a reason to talk about him/her that matter.
The pharmacy setting as we think in the Philippines is not the ideal setting to practice. As we perceived long ago that becoming a pharmacist in our country means you are going to be a vendor in a pharmacy or drug establishment. But wait our profession is not in that thing at all. Filipinos are idealistic, we are very presumptuous that other countries' pharmacy practice are better than us. But come to think with this, any place you go, the feeling is the same, the conditions or predicaments are parallel, the day to day work does not far from the actual.
I have just read blogs of the pharmacists in the USA about their seething and bold talk of their practice with regards to community pharmacy condition. Their experience with American customers, who are very pampered with their insurance, convenience and filling of prescriptions. If your read their blogs they are being pest, always moody and sometimes want to killing their patient by filling them with wrong drug instead of the right one. You can sense their feeling of engaging with customers who are very rude, indecent and very demanding that make them angry, exhausted and unkind.
We thought that everything that involved in pharmacy profession in the US is very perfect as if their is no flaw, and because we idolized their being so perfect, we are dreaming that we would be like that. But wait did you know that even pharmacists their are always in bad situation and exhausted and complaining about indecency of their patients or their day is ruined by filling patient's prescription?
I show you some ideal thing we admired most from them, but the fact that the same thing happens to us also.
1.USA Setting: The patient would call the pharmacy to tell if his prescriptions are already sent to them by his doctor and be ready to pick up sooner. But afterwards the pharmacist filled the prescriptions and notifies the patient about his bill and the patient sees the cost is expensive, he gonna change his mine and request the pharmacy to transfer his prescriptions to a bigger chained drugstore in the USA. After filling and long time of working for that, the patient has no consideration of appreciating the work of pharmacist to get the filled prescription and prepared drugs for him. That would cause bad effects to the pharmacist.
Philippine Setting: After reviewing the patient's prescription and noting all the prices and calculated the whole cost of the prescription, the patient would change his mine and not to buy anymore because he just into canvassing to where he can buy less expensive drugs. That would be a bad day to have and make the pharmacist or salesclerk to be moody at all.
2. USA Setting: Some patients and customers are demanding and feel they are VIP. They get irate when their prescription is not filled within 5 minutes or less.
Ph Setting: Patient gets irate whenever his prescription filling is very long even he stands there just less than a minute yet.
3.USA Setting: Patient who says his prescription filling is expensive, however, almost all expenses are covered by his insurance.
Ph Setting: Even we never collect payments from insurance, in our setting, the patients are given the least price of medicines and still they are complaining about the price.
If you want to know about more strange and very ridiculous experiences of pharmacists in the US, please read some blogs that can relate to your situation and practice.
Conclusion:
I know that pharmacy setting in the Philippines is not as strict as in the USA with prescription, policy and reputation, I can say we are still lucky to have such practice like this in the Philippines. The reason I said that are the following:
1. Almost all customers are very pleasing, well-mannered and easily to convince. They do not ask many things anymore and believe what you are validly saying to them.
2. No insurances to take, no receiving of prescription through fax, phone or email because it is not yet well implemented and no vivid regulation regarding those and especially no drive thrus.
3. Pharmacy is not being manned by pharmacist alone but along with salesclerks and pharmacy assistants.
4. The basis of payment is cash or card.
5. Easily to end up transaction.
6. Prescription strictness is not absolute and many customers buy ethical drugs as OTC drugs do.
7. Pharmacist may not be present at business hours (depends on the policy of drugstore, but it is against the law to operate without pharmacist)
While the best things in the US is that:
1. No prescription, no filling!
2. Patient-doctor-and-pharmacist relationship is open and active.
3. Strictly implemented, No pharmacist no operation. Especially on lunch time, pharmacies close for 30 minutes to 1 hour, so patients are complaining whenever they needed their drugs to fill or refill.
4. Pharmacists are actively involving in patient counseling, dispensing and monitoring patient's record.
5. Pharmacists are highly respected and considered as their first choice to consult about drugs.
6. Pharmacies rapport is harmonious and help each other wherever the patient chooses to fill his prescription.
7. Pharmacist are the ones who prepare the prescription and also imprint the label needed in filling.
