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In times of crisis such as this COVID-19 pandemic, one only needs to look at who the government, public health agencies and hospitals are interacting with and calling upon to respond to understand the limited role a pharmacist plays in the healthcare ecosystem. I do not make this post to beat a dead horse, but many of the things that have been echoed on this forum are now becoming extremely apparent (if it isn't already apparent).
Some observations I've made through the last few days:
1) Pharmacy is saturated with an oversupply of workers, yet in a time of public health crisis there is no increase in demand for pharmacists to aid in relief efforts because the PharmD curriculum is irrelevant, "pharmacist skill sets" are not transferrable and pharmacists are not recognized as even midlevel providers.
In California, cities are hosting job fairs and hiring qualified/licensed nurses ON THE SPOT because there is a surge in demand for "frontline healthcare staff." Meanwhile, job fairs for pharmacists have been nonexistant and they can't even volunteer with relief efforts because they don't even have the basic medical training to even screen/triage patients. Moreover, I only hear of more and more pharmacists (who work in hospitals) being SENT HOME as opposed to working more hours due to demand. Can you imagine doctors or nurses "working from home" in a time like this?
2) Even if there were an expanded role for pharmacists during this public health crisis, we do not have a voice to represent the issues specific to pharmacy and therefore any progress/relief pharmacists get will be a result of the trickle-down that comes through policy work from non-pharmacy (medical and nursing) national organizations.
If you've been watching the news then you'd know that the President has been meeting with not just legislators, private sector/commercial companies but also healthcare groups to talk through issues that impact them. Today, he met with the heads of the NP groups to listen to their concerns about PPEs and ventilators and I can't help but think that if pharmacists were actually relevant then they should be getting a meeting with the President. The only time pharmacy has been mentioned so far is in the context of developing new therapeutics (which isn't pharmacy) and converting select retail sites to serve as collection sites for corona testing. Tremendous failure by APhA, AACP, ASHP etc to represent our profession and lobby for an increased scope of practice (this is a great time for that) in a time like this.
3. Pharmacy is possibly the healthcare profession (maybe I should call it a pseudo-healthcare profession) with the biggest passive-aggressive whiners in it and most pharmacists lack perspective.
I don't know how many posts I've seen in the last week about the lack of PPEs and how we should be "paid more" because we deal with patients who potentially have corona every day. I've laid out an argument elsewhere that a bag boy at a supermarket is probably exposed to more corona patients than a retail pharmacist so I won't go through that again, but it is statements like these that reveals peoples' true colors and if we all truly went into healthcare/pharmacy to "help people" and not for the paycheck, people would not say things like this. In any industry, the "highest risk" workers are not the ones getting paid the most, and we have it good compared to real providers, so for those that keep complaining about lack of PPE/hazard pay etc., just know that if nurses/physicians aren't even getting adequate protection or pay, then there is no way that pharmacy will get it so stop whining about it.
What do you all think?
Some observations I've made through the last few days:
1) Pharmacy is saturated with an oversupply of workers, yet in a time of public health crisis there is no increase in demand for pharmacists to aid in relief efforts because the PharmD curriculum is irrelevant, "pharmacist skill sets" are not transferrable and pharmacists are not recognized as even midlevel providers.
In California, cities are hosting job fairs and hiring qualified/licensed nurses ON THE SPOT because there is a surge in demand for "frontline healthcare staff." Meanwhile, job fairs for pharmacists have been nonexistant and they can't even volunteer with relief efforts because they don't even have the basic medical training to even screen/triage patients. Moreover, I only hear of more and more pharmacists (who work in hospitals) being SENT HOME as opposed to working more hours due to demand. Can you imagine doctors or nurses "working from home" in a time like this?
2) Even if there were an expanded role for pharmacists during this public health crisis, we do not have a voice to represent the issues specific to pharmacy and therefore any progress/relief pharmacists get will be a result of the trickle-down that comes through policy work from non-pharmacy (medical and nursing) national organizations.
If you've been watching the news then you'd know that the President has been meeting with not just legislators, private sector/commercial companies but also healthcare groups to talk through issues that impact them. Today, he met with the heads of the NP groups to listen to their concerns about PPEs and ventilators and I can't help but think that if pharmacists were actually relevant then they should be getting a meeting with the President. The only time pharmacy has been mentioned so far is in the context of developing new therapeutics (which isn't pharmacy) and converting select retail sites to serve as collection sites for corona testing. Tremendous failure by APhA, AACP, ASHP etc to represent our profession and lobby for an increased scope of practice (this is a great time for that) in a time like this.
3. Pharmacy is possibly the healthcare profession (maybe I should call it a pseudo-healthcare profession) with the biggest passive-aggressive whiners in it and most pharmacists lack perspective.
I don't know how many posts I've seen in the last week about the lack of PPEs and how we should be "paid more" because we deal with patients who potentially have corona every day. I've laid out an argument elsewhere that a bag boy at a supermarket is probably exposed to more corona patients than a retail pharmacist so I won't go through that again, but it is statements like these that reveals peoples' true colors and if we all truly went into healthcare/pharmacy to "help people" and not for the paycheck, people would not say things like this. In any industry, the "highest risk" workers are not the ones getting paid the most, and we have it good compared to real providers, so for those that keep complaining about lack of PPE/hazard pay etc., just know that if nurses/physicians aren't even getting adequate protection or pay, then there is no way that pharmacy will get it so stop whining about it.
What do you all think?
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