Meet Arden P.
Huntington Beach, CAI'm Arden Pratt and I've worked as a pharmacist for more than 44 years. A lot has changed about our work over the years, which is natural, but the thing that has changed the most is the way the huge chains control everything now.
I used to work for Sav-On which was a feeling of being part of a family company. When CVS took over Sav-On, they changed everything. Nothing about the way we did things at Sav-On remained, regardless of how things might have worked better before the take over. The thing that bothers me is that they totally changed the way the pharmacy is run. CVS dictates procedures and times you on everything from how many rings it takes to answer the phone to how many minutes it takes to fill a prescription. They place an emphasis on these reports. We'd be better off if we could just focus on filling prescriptions accurately and fast instead of being manipulated by these reports.
I enjoy my work when I get to feel like I'm doing something to help
people. When people come back and thank you for the counseling or
advice that you gave them, that's what it's all about. But now it seems
there's just not enough time to do everything. When I started in this
work we had six pharmacists and one tech. Now it's just one pharmacist
and sometimes six techs. We've gotten away from that professionalism
and now we're just selling a product, the drug, not the services, not
the whole package. The big chains are making the most important part of
our work, really helping people, more of a rare thing or a thing of the
past. They say they promote professionalism, but they don't follow
through.
My name is Ray Funatsu and I've been a pharmacist since 1963. In '74 I started working as a manager with Sav-on until '94; that's when I stepped down because it got to be a little too much. I worked until 2000 and retired and now I'm on-call.
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