Ok, so I'm googling myself, why? Because my ego is the size of the Grand Canyon, that's why, and I find that......I have a fan. Seems like a potential young Drugnazi has come across my little blog garden, decided that I'm pretty "freaking funny" and that they "can't wait to be a pharmacist." Time for an intervention.
While I wholeheartedly agree about my freaky funniness, I think a recounting of a lecture I had to attend shortly before graduation may be in order before it's too late for all you pharmacy students out there. The lecture was entitled "The Four D's Of Pharmacy; What You Weren't Told When You Applied To Pharmacy School" The said D's were, in no particular order:
1) Drunkenness
2) Divorce
3) Death By Suicide
4) aDDiction
All of these 4 D's happened at a greater rate among pharmacists than in the general population the lecture said, and I can report today that I have 2 of the D's down. I used to drink my weight in Milwaukee's Best pretty much every weekend in frat-boy college fests, and there has been an ex-Mrs. Drugnazi for a few years now. (Shocking, just shocking that there was a woman who couldn't put up with my shit...heh)
Learn from me future drugnazi's of this country. While drunkenness can be at times quite fun, divorce is expensive, I have heard nothing but bad things about addiction, and if the Christians are right, death by suicide is the surest way to get your ticket punched for hell. (Which in a pharmacists case means spending all eternity answering questions from fat old diabetics as to how to work their blood glucose meter. The One Touch customer service department is my fate unless I straighten up before judgment day.) The only consolation of course, is that with the drugnazi-size paychecks I'm knocking down these days, I long ago traded in the $1.98 a six-pack swill for a bottle of good scotch. So if you do end up washing your life away in an alcohol induced fog, at least you won't be on the corner with a cardboard sign pretending you'll work for food. Damn I need a martini all the sudden. We'll have to finish this later.
4 comments:
maybe they should start pharm. school with the lecture on the 4D's. And I thought this would be a humourous post about 2 blondes.
Thanks for commenting, first off!
It is really helpful to see a pharmacist's blog.
If you do find the time to post a continuation of this topic (you did say, "We'll have to finish this later."), could you detail a little bit more of what makes being a pharmacist such a soul-killing job? Is it the system, the customers (I work retail, so I feel a modicum of your pain), seeing human misery, being unable to help everyone? Long hours, ready availability of prescription drugs, stupid-ass questions, etc?
Maybe all the pharmacists that I've met are in denial, or they just want to lure another innocent into their horrifying career path... hmmmm. Of course, being left-handed means that statistically I will suffer a drunken, divorced, suicide by drugs six years before the average right-handed pharmacist-- now those are statistics to live by!
I think I need to do some of that there googling of pharmacist blogs-- I don't know why it didn't occur to me before.
Also, I have to say that you are going in my favorites. While I morally oppose the phrase "freaking funny", I do think that you are pretty fucking funny. My type of drugnazi!
"Is it the system, the customers (I work retail, so I feel a modicum of your pain), seeing human misery, being unable to help everyone? Long hours, ready availability of prescription drugs, stupid-ass questions, etc?"
yes.
I feel after you wrote all that you deserve more than a one word answer however, so I'll elaborate. I've always said the problem with the profession could be summed up as "all the responsibility, none of the control" You're not the one who wrote the prescription incorrectly, but your ass is on the line if it gets filled the way it was written AND you'll take shit from the patient when it's not ready right away because you had to call Dr. Dumbass to get it straightened out. You're not the one denying the insurance claim, but you're the one who catches customer hell for it. You'll spend your entire work life with 5 people demanding your instant attention, and taking shit for things that weren't your responsibility. Oh, and after you beat your brains in for 6 years learning drug stuff, you'll find afterwards if you go into retail pharmacy that whenever anyone says you're a "good" pharmacist, they don't mean you know your drug stuff, they mean you're a "fast" pharmacist. Until you make a mistake that is. Then you should have been more careful. Another analogy would be that of a baseball umpire. You'll be constantly called on to make lightning-fast decisions, and if you do your job well, the best you can hope for is that no one will notice you. Fuck up just one of those decisions though, and you look like the world's biggest retard.
So yeah, if you've got the brainpower and motivation to go the big-time pharmacology/research route, go for it. Friend of mine did that & he loves it, plus you'll have a shot at leaving a lifetime legacy that really will help millions of people, assuming they don't put you on something like the Paxil CR project. And you'll still make enough to buy the good scotch.
i'm glad i'm looking around at pharmacist's blogs. I think you've confirmed my suspicions about retail. 99% i should do a residency after all this crap, but irony have it, i then may end up even more over-qualified for senior citizens to bitch at me all day.
thanks for the blog, at least if like sucks after i'm done, i'll put in your 3 12's and forget about the place the rest of the week
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