Meet Jamal L.
Randolph, MAMy name is Jamal Liles. I'm a retail pharmacist in Massachusetts, and I have a question. Are pharmacist's healthcare professionals or cashiers and manufacturing floor workers?
After six years of school I'm sick of being asked at the drive through window "can you get me...?" You can fill in the blanks. Would a patient ask their doctor "can you put me in the computer" or "can you get me some lunch from the cafeteria"? Of course not. So why are pharmacists asked to do these things? Are we healthcare professionals or not?
Also, we can all agree that techs are extremely important so why can't we compensate them for there talents? Better paid techs means happier techs means better techs period. So what's the answer? What are pharmacists and how do we become what we thought we'd be? I think this is the first step.
What are some examples of what I'm describing? We've all talked to our
hospital counterparts who never complain about breaks or enough help.
Their job is well defined. They get to be pharmacists while we get to
be pharmacist, tech, cashiers, insurance specialists, manufacturing
worker, gophers, etc.
So is the first step fixing our break situation? In my opinion, no. Step one would be TECHNICIANS because if you have happy techs you have happy pharmacist and happy patients. If you increase tech salaries you increase tech involvement which equals better patient care. Of course with higher salaries there's more responsibility, that goes without saying. My wish is to be more like my hospital counterparts.
So is the first step fixing our break situation? In my opinion, no. Step one would be TECHNICIANS because if you have happy techs you have happy pharmacist and happy patients. If you increase tech salaries you increase tech involvement which equals better patient care. Of course with higher salaries there's more responsibility, that goes without saying. My wish is to be more like my hospital counterparts.
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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