Meet Delphine P.

Panorama City, CA

I have worked with Rite Aid since 1993, and I have practiced pharmacy since 1983. I once even ran my own independent pharmacy in Ivory Coast.

There are some major differences between practicing pharmacy in Ivory Coast and in the retail industry in America. For example, here the marketing aspect of the work takes over your time. We have a competitor coupon program that causes customers to move from store to store just to get the coupons. This makes it harder to work with them as patients. As a pharmacist, you should be using your knowledge to help the patients, to take care of them.

There are so many retail pharmacies now and the way the companies keep up is to make the pharmacist work harder, which keeps us from taking the time to give our professional advice. When we get pressured for time by the company, it can impact our professional judgement.

I'm getting involved with the Put Pharmacy First campaign because we need real change.

Meet Ray F.

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.