Category Archives: Hate Mail

Doctors and Stuff, Hate Mail

Dr “4 Degrees” and the Caps-Lock key eludes him

31 Comments

Sometimes all I need to do is to just check my email for a laugh:

for the pill counting pharmisist why is he playing drr?HE ISNT THE ONE WITH
A MEDICAL DEGREE AND ITS NOT HIS DEA NUMBER AT STAKE AND THERE IS NO LEGAL
WAY HE KNOWS THE PATIENT HISTORY.TOO MANY PHARMASCIST WANT TO PLAY POLICE
AND DR, FOR THE 1 PERCENT WHO ABUSE AND THEY WONDER WHY MOST ARE GOING MAIL
ORDER TO HAVE FILLED.MOST RX PEOPLE TAKE FOR A PERIOD OF TIME ALL THEY NEED
IS PILLS COUNTED AMD REFILLED. PHARMACISTS WHO CALL DRS. MULTIPLE TIME HAVE
NOTHING TO DO AND MDS DONT HAVE THE TIME,TODAY YOU HAVE TO SEE 5 PATIENTS
VERSUS ONE TO MAKE WHAT WAS MADE IN 1995 AND DONT HAVE THE LUXURY OF 8 HR.
DAYS COUNTING DOR 100K A YEAR.THIS COMES FROM A DR, WHO HAS 15 YEARS OF
SCHOOL AND 4 DEGREES

Right, this comes from a doctor who has 15 years of school and 4 degrees. You would think a “doctor” of this caliber would know how to write in proper English or at the very least knows how to use the Caps-Lock key.
I’m not playing “dr”. I’m doing my fucking job. Obviously if you write a sig on an Rx, and that patient chooses not to follow that sig, then I can choose not to fill the Rx, plain and simple. Plus, when I’m bored with all that LOADS of free time that I have, I decide to call MD’s just to chat. Us pharmacists have a secret game that we play called “piss off the MD” where we call up a bunch of MD’s and time how long we can tie them up on the phones! Its fun! You should play! Then, after you play, you can yank your head out of your ass and realize that what you wrote above makes no sense.

WHO IS THIS ANGRY PHARMACIST WHO WONT FILL VICODEN WITH OUT BUGGING THE DR.
AND WONT FILL RITALIN OR OTHER DRUGS THAT THE DR. ORDERS IN WHICH HE CANT
KNOW IF ITS APPROPRIATE OR NOT FOR ONE THING HE HAS NO DR. DEGREE LET ALONE
MD.HE NEEDS TO FIND ANOTHER PROFESSION BECAUSE SOON THE 100K HE MAKES AND
HIS NICE CAR AND HOUSE HE OWNS IS GOING TO BE ONE OF THE PATIENTS AND HE
WONT HAVE HIS PILL COUNTING LICENCE ANYMORE. FROM THE DISGRUNTLED PHYSICIAN

I dont know if its appropriate or not because I have no doctor degree? Wait, actually I do have a doctorate, however I do not have an MD, so you’re only half wrong there buddy. It doesn’t take a degree in pharmacology to realize that if your patient is blasting through 120 vicodin in 1 week, obviously you are missing the boat entirely. How is my patient going to own my house/car/etc? Is he going to sue me for not dispensing his vicodin 3 weeks early even if the MD gives the ok for the 20th early fill in a row? Hate to tell you, but the DEA will side with me until the cows come home and will gladly plant that shiny DEA number that you covet so much right up your ass. You figure out why, you’re smart with your 4 degrees and 15 years of school.
Plus where does it even say on here that I wont fill a Ritalin Rx? Where does it say that I wont fill anything but the crackhead’s Soma thats 3 weeks early? You need to start reading the site before you fly off the handle. OH WAIT, YOU HAVE 4 DEGREES, IM SORRY.

WHEN DO THESE GET POSTED AND WHERE? IT APPEARS IT IS A PHARMACIST NETWORK AND IF IT IS CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISIM THEY DONT WANT TO HEAR IT,FROM THE MD

Ha! An MD who does not want to hear constructive ‘critisim’? Go figure! Thanks for re-enforcing every stereotype of the “I am god do what I say” MD that pharmacy students dread.
A pharmacist network? Thats right! You have stumbled upon a secret underground network of disgruntled pharmacists who’s sole purpose is to take over the medical world and make that plain-ole-stupid MD just obsolete.
Let me put it to you in a way that you will understand.
READ THE ACTUAL SITE BEFORE YOU GO OFF ON THESE TIRADES MAKING YOURSELF LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT. FURTHERMORE LEARN HOW TO USE THE GOD DAMN CAPS LOCK KEY.
Seriously, If I were an MD I’d be pretty embarrassed to have this guy in my ranks (but Im sure people say that about me. Eh, oh well).

Hate Mail, Pharmacy School

Whats with the retail hateage?

29 Comments

Original is here
Before I tear this poster a new one, in his defense the last paragraph:

I know I’ll get flamed for all of this by the retail pharmacists who read this for being too idealistic and for not even being out of pharm school yet, but I’ve seen what pharmacy can be.

Ah, to be young and in school again. Anyway, on with the show.

I agree with your whole post except the one part. Your comment that profs couldn’t cut it in retail bugs me. In my opinion the profs that did the residencies and are making real clinical decisions worked a hell of a lot harder than those who got through pharmacy school and accepted the sign-on bonus from X pharmacy chain.

Because being someone bitch working for minimum wage in some hospital for a year makes you better than the retail folk? Makes you ‘harder working’? Tell the poor guy working graveyard at Rite-Aid who fills your child’s antibiotics at 2am that. Tell the BS’s in the crowd that the PharmD’s are “harder working” and see where that gets you.

I know this is a big source of contention for you, but I have no problem at all calling them “Dr.” At least at my school..aside from teaching, the profs are clinical pharmacists who do a hell of a lot more “pharmacy” as opposed to retail pharmacists who spend more time dealing with insurance issues.

Son, I’m going to have a heart to heart talk with you. You are going to piss off /a lot/ of retail pharmacists with an attitude like that, so change it right now. Regardless on how you view the world from your wool-pulled-over student eyes, you will have to deal with retail folk, and belittling them by saying that they are less than “clinical pharmacists” is going to get your ass hung out to dry.
This is beside the point that when the public thinks of “pharmacy” they think of the retail guys who give their children antibiotics and prevent medication errors.

Many of them left retail not because they couldn’t cut it, but because they were sick of the retail experience and wanted to actually use their education.

That sounds like “couldn’t cut it” to me. I thought they went through residency programs? Why (for all of their “harder work” than us retail folk) would they settle to be nothing more than pill vending machines and insurance agents? Why don’t they go and work in a hospital to put their “clinical skills” to work rather than sit there and recite the same bullshit year after year to student after student?
I think a real “clinical pharmacist” does a whole helluva lot more than just sit there and talk for an hour to a bunch of students from stuff that they could just read in a book for themselves.

I’ve shadowed and had several experiences in the hospital with these professors and pharmacy residents who do have relationships with doctors and who actually make therapeutic decisions that the doctors listen to. They go on rounds and have full clinic days in addition to teaching.

Gold star for you. I’m proud that you set this old retail pharmacists who has never ever worked in a hospital (do you ever read my site?) straight. Because we all know that us stupid retail folk NEVER EVER make any therapeutic decisions and NEVER EVER do ANYTHING that would have anything to do than what we learn in pharmacy school. We’re nothing but just stupid pill counters.
When your testicles finally drop, and you get your shiny diploma and license, think of me as you are getting screamed at by the attending because you gave someone atenolol with a CrCl of < 20 instead of something like metoprolol. Because us retail folk know nothing of that sort. Our PharmD's and state board licenses are obtained via crackerjack boxes unlike yours which is granted upon thine holyness by the great god of pharmacy himself. However something makes me think you'll be working retail after you get out. Having an entire school of uppity "clinical" students tends to sap out the clinical jobs quite quickly.

As if teaching is automatically the fall back option when in reality retail is the fall back option. They actually use pharmacy school knowledge…it’s not a “fart in the wind” to them. The teaching hospital that our school is a part of employs over a hundred pharmacists. It can serve as a model for what pharmacy could be. I know all this is not the norm by any means, but if pharmacists can’t even respect other pharmacists then how can we ever expect MDs to?

*sigh* I’ll let the other retail folk rip you a new one. I’m too tired to tell you how stupid you sound.
I respect all pharmacists, however its fun to sling shit at each other once in a while to stir the pot.

Maybe it’s just my school, but my professors don’t sugarcoat the retail experience at all. They tell us how much they hated their retail experience and why. They tell us that it would be great to sit down and perform MTM, but the barriers are large. On top of that, The majority of our class has or has worked retail. We are fully aware of how shitty retail is in real life.

I’m glad your professors give you unbiased information. How would they know about ‘retail experience’ if they are all ‘clinical pharmacists’? How would you know anything about pharmacy by just being a student? Why dont you go formulate your own opinions about things like I do vs having them spoon fed to you by the faculty of your school.
My post was not “how shitty retail is”, its that what pharmacy schools teach you is NOT what the real life is about. Maybe if you would actually READ the entry before you spout off your holier-than-thou “clinical pharmacist” attitude crap you would of gotten the picture. Retail isn’t crap, its what the population thinks of when they hear the word “pharmacist”. Like it or not, we are the backbone of the profession and will always be the backbone of the profession.
I’ve worked as a “clinical pharmacist” and to be honest, I’d rather stand for 9 hours and actually socialize with my patients and their families than be some doctors bitch up on the floors of the hospital. I’m a person, not a fucking interactive drug book. Retail guys are furthering the profession of pharmacy so much more than the “clinical guys” because more people interact with us, we are accessible to everyone, and we’re everywhere!
If you would of read my post, you would of gotten that one of the major points (other than the “couldnt cut it”) is that most professors have not worked retail for a while so they have no idea what its like on the “real world”. How can a professor who works only floors at a hospital have any sense as to what retail pharmacy is like vs the guy who has been doing retail for 20+ years?

As a response to Nicole…in almost all cases there isn’t time to sit down with patients. However with the integration of MTM and diabetes-ed services into certain retail chains and the new changes to Medicare D there is an opening for retail pharmacy to move towards allowing actual counseling to happen. Did you know all those techniques for talking with patients IS actually used in the clinical ambulatory settings? Soo…maybe it isn’t all BS. However, if we all as (future) pharmacists continue to keep saying that this will never happen and continue calling all of this BS, then it won’t.

Make sure you make FUTURE pharmacist quite clear, because you are spouting off shit like you have been in the trenches for years. Damn PharmD CANDIDATE (hahah! I hate that word).

Maybe the reason doctors are so mean to you on the phone is because you’re a bitch. I’ve talked with and clarified scripts with more friendly doctors and nurses than assholes.

HAHAHAH I cant wait until you get screamed at by a doctor and end up crying in the pharmacy. Maybe your preceptor will hand you a tissue between giggles. Oh wait, you’re smarter than that stupid retail guy that just ‘settled for’ his job. Or maybe when you make that suggestion to the doctor and he totally shuts you down you’ll get the idea. Getting a script clarification is easy, getting something changed when the doctor has his mind set on something is a completely different story.
Pass the boards first and get your degree before you start throwing shit around, you just look like an idiot.

I know I’ll get flamed for all of this by the retail pharmacists who read this for being too idealistic and for not even being out of pharm school yet, but I’ve seen what pharmacy can be. My retail pharmacy (that does over 400+ scripts a day) has MTM, diabetes ed, flu immunizations, and other counseling sessions that people pay for. I’ve seen first hand the impact and the role that pharmacists can play in the clinical setting. It CAN happen, but if we keep denigrating our own profession and our own colleagues it won’t.

Your retail pharmacy? Son, you have no retail pharmacy and by the way you threw shit at the retail scene up there, what are you doing settling for a retail job anways? I hate to break it to you, but most retail outlets do all that diabetes/immunizations crap too. Of course we are expected to help people manage DM, to council and answer their questions and to give injections. Its part of the job, so don’t think your shit smells any better than ours because we have been doing for years.
You have NO idea how much you are going to get flamed by the retail guys. I really think you should stop visiting this site, because you obviously take stuff obtained from THE ANGRY PHARMACIST as the gospel of pharmacy.

Hate Mail, Pharmacists

Yay, moral hate mail!

10 Comments

The entire tirade about retail pharmacy is here

My last comment…the one I’m sure will draw fire, is regarding the
Birth Control Pill argument…. I am on your side that moral and
religious believes should play no role in pharmacy dispensing…
Refusal to dispense based upon those things goes against everything the
healthcare industry stands for (do no harm, yada, yada)… But I must
have read 15 comments you’ve posted over the past number of months that
all relate some story of a ‘vicodin addict or loser’ trying to get an
early refill or pull one over on you… Let me ask you…. What
percentage of vicodin (or pick your drug…I won’t go the route of
mentioning your personal favorite) prescriptions do you fill? Of 10
that you get, how many are legit in your view and you agree to
dispense? Does someone’s appearance play a role in determining that
script’s validity in your eyes? Some of your comments on the person’s
smell, clothing, hygiene all seem to imply that you do…. Is that a
‘moral judgement you’re making’? One person’s street drug is another
person’s morning coffee and cigarrette. The only difference is that one
is illicit and therefore hard to get, and the other is has entire store
chains devoted to it….(Starbucks…?)

First off, comparing a moral objection to dispense birth control vs refusing to dispense vicodin thats a week too early isn’t even an argument.  Its even stupid to even start to compare them.  How can you even start to equate “You know, God says that abortion is wrong so I refuse to fill your pills.. MURDERER” to “Uh, you just got 120 vicodin from another doctor 4 days ago, I’m not filling this until you are due”?  One is a 100% your own personal opinion and the other is doing what the DEA mandated our job to be (not to mention a huge safety/health/do-no-harm issue).  To answer your question, of those 10 Rx’s I have a pretty good assumption that at least 7 or 8 are being diverted (does everyone need Vicodin, Valium, AND Soma?).  However can I do anything about it? No. Why? I have no proof that there is, and there is that chance that they aren’t being diverted and actually used. So if they are on time, I dispense it without question.

So would you call someone who “loses/gets stolen” their vicodin Rx at least 3 times a month, always calls in 10 days early, doctor shops and is on every ER’s “do not dispense” list an addict?  Is that a call of morals like refusing to dispense Plan-B or a good statement of fact that you need to keep an eye on this person.  Its not even a moral call but a ‘get-you-head-out-of-your-ass’ call.

The personal appearance argument is vague at best.  I look at every Rx with a huge grain of salt especially if they are a new patient or an out of town patient/doctor.  I’m just as quick to call out doctor shoppers if they are a long-term patient or someone i’ve never seen before.  You know why? Its my job. 

Never in my career have I ever said “you know what, you look strung out and I think you are on way too much of this.  I am going to refuse it for no good reason other than my own”.  It doesn’t work that way.  I have however refused to refill based upon “Uh, if you take this how you are taking it, you are going to blow out your liver from 10 grams of tylenol a day, let me call the doctor”.  Thats a safety issue, not a “moral judgement”.

Judging by the rest of your comment, I doubt that you work retail.

An interesting tidbit of real-life info for those pharmacy students out there… One of the sucky part of my job is having to monitor diversion in a large setting… We use many tools to do this in order to track patterns.

Ah, I was right.

Hate Mail

Everyones a Fucking Genius

12 Comments

So I got some hatemail in response to this entry

They may be corporate assholes, but at least they hold nobel intent.

Nobel intent would be charging a fair price for /all/ generics. Not $4 for amoxicillin yet $40 for a month supply of lisinopril or HCTZ.

People are dying; antibiotics save lives. No company *has* to give this type of break to anyone since the parasitical lobbyists from healthcare industry have penetrated both aisles of Congress. Yet they do.

Actually inappropriate use of antibiotics kill people (MRSA? VRE? VRSA?). Maintenance drugs that cost pennies will save more lives than all of the antibiotics combined. Why aren’t they giving all those away for free?
You’re right, no company /has/ to give this type of break however it looks really, really good for business if they do. Plus guess what, if you transfer all of your drugs there for 2 or so drugs at $4, you get to pay 10x what an independent charges for the remaining 5 of your Rx’s. Bait-and-switch. Bend over and grab your ankles. They are making up for the loss somewhere.

Get over it.
And when a universal coverage system hits, get over it too. You may have to put your new Porsche up for sale and switch to a Honda (get a hybrid and you can save the environment and maybe someone’s health, all that the same time).

Nah, myself and all the other pharmacists will be out of business at that point. We’ll determine that the cost of our schooling outweighs our income and we’ll just all do something else that makes money. Then as the pharmacies start to dwindle, the ones remaining can charge whatever the fuck they want or just refuse to serve you. Then what? You’ll just bitch that pharmacists are a bunch of greedy bastards because they don’t wish to work for free to fill your trade name Coreg for $1.50 profit.
Oh, I dont drive a porsche. I think fancy cars is just pissing money away. I prefer to spend all my money paying taxes so welfare folk don’t have to work and for this website so you’ll have something to bitch about at work.

If you wanted to make money, you should have went to work on Wall St not a place where reimbursements have been dwindling for years. Did you think that was going to change?

You think money is on wall street? I should of opened a PBM and started raping the system a long time ago, however anally raping the sick and poor isn’t really my cup of tea. Maybe to you wall street types its okay.

You’re a self-loathing narcissist; get over yourself.

You’re just a retarded douche who has totally made an ass of himself in front of a few hundred pharmacists.

N.B. I have been reading other comments on here and it’s somewhat nauseating. I think, instead of rx’ing myself Zofran 8mg tid I’ll go with Phenergan 25mg q4-6h off the $4 menu. Where’s your pharmacy.

Zofran is pennies now. Its generic, so yes, I will be Rx’ing myself some Zofran because it costs about the same a Phenegran and doesn’t have all the sedation side effects. My pharmacy however does not have a $4 menu because we charge a fair price for /all/ medications, not cheap out over a few to draw people in to rape them on the other ones. Fair prices and good service, like all pharmacies should be.
Plus what does my post have to do about anything that you are ranting about? Did you even read my post? Let me recap because I know I used some big words.
My rant was about these pharmacies giving away free/$4 generics away setting a precedent to the insurance companies to cut our reimbursements due to the fact that if we can get by selling things for $4, then obviously their reimbursements are way too high. They are fucking it up for the rest of us who cannot afford to sell medications for $4. Its a marketing scam and its going to draw the opinion of all the major PBM’s to make that AWP-30%+1.50 sound like a wet dream.
Wait to see how many pharmacies are left when the PBM’s make all the reimbursements $4/rx, and next time read my damn post before flaunting your ignorance.

Hate Mail

Oh, a talking head from Express Scripts

29 Comments

Oh-boy! A response from an Express Scripts Reject!

As an employee of Express Scripts, I just thought I would drop you a line and let you know to fuck off. You pharmacies bitch like shit about this but when there’s drugs out there your being reimbursed SUBSTANTIALLY over cost do you call us and complain? I didn’t think so, not as if any of you fuckers are taking a loss on a day to day basis.

So, a Call Center dropout somehow knows what our cost is to fill prescriptions? What is your definition of “SUBSTANTIALLY” over cost? Is $5 over cost? How do you know how much we get medications for? You think that if we were being reimbursed over a ‘fair’ price we would call and bitch? We call and bitch because:

  • You pay us $7 over the base cost when our fixed cost (salaries, vial, label, etc) is close to $9. But of course you know that better than we do, you work for Express Scripts. Plus we all work for free, the vials grow on trees and label’s are delivered to us by the label fairy. The power company also likes to take IOU’s as well.
  • Your system is down, which grinds our business to a halt, and makes patients pissed at /us/ because /you/ decided to do a system upgrade on the first of the month.
  • You dont print ID cards with the correct and complete information. I shouldn’t have to guess that a person code of 98 is needed to fill Rx’s for your patients. Again, the patients have to wait for us to sit on hold to get the right info to process their Rx’s over something thats /your/ fault.
    So yeah, we call and bitch because there is a reason, we’d rather not spend most of our day sitting on the phone when we could be out filling Rx’s.

    • Hate Mail

    No no, someone didnt kill me.

    22 Comments

    Sorry for the lapse. Work, death in family, long needed vacation, life, etc. I’m not dead.

    who r u if u worked for WAG THEY WOULD HAVE FIRED U A LONG TIME AGO. I know
    this will not make it to your blog because your are a plant .give me a
    break . if you are a chain pharmacist you wopuld not know some of the stuff
    you are blogging about like profit margins and such. so own up and tell us
    who you really work for

    I am a plant? What the hell?
    You’re right, if I were a chain pharmacist I would not know about profit margins and other stuff like that. I work for an independent pharmacy (thats a pharmacy not owned by a big company, but a family/single person) so I have to know about profit margins, how much ExpressScripts is boning me, and what a ‘good’ reimbursement is. I’ve said it a bazillion times in the past, you just had to take 2 seconds and look for yourself. Now you look like an idiot in front of everyone. Good job.

    Hate Mail

    TAP – 2 / Drug Reps – 0

    47 Comments

    I swear, sometimes this website just writes itself. I wrote this a while ago, but you guys have already picked out all the choice material in the comments by the time i got around to post it. 🙁

    I have been in medical sales for my entire career, ten of those as a drug rep. I am a professional woman, I dress professionally, and hopefully I bring decent information to the doctors and pharmacists that I call on.

    “Decent” information would include unbiased information.. So you bring propaganda, because you have a desired outcome the moment you walk in the front door..

    Drug reps are not prostitutes, nor have I ever “sucked anyone’s….” to get business. I have never been out on a date with a doctor. I seperate business from my personal life.

    Oh jeezus. Wear a net over your head so maybe you’ll understand one of my many jokes.
    Did you really think that I thought drug reps were out giving doctors blowjobs and lapdances? Seriously, it was a metaphor, a figure of speech to mean that they were selling themselves and preforming “favors” in the way of pens and free dinner/goodies in return for something, in this case writing for the product that you are pushing. It was a creative and descriptive way to say “bribe” or “kickback”. Its not really prostitution, because the doctors aren’t paying YOU for your services, its the other way around, so its like reverse prostitution, prostitution^-1, or noitutitsorp (thats prostitution backwards).
    Now if my made-up example was correct, and there were drug reps out giving blowjobs in return for writing for their product, then I’m in the wrong damn profession. 😉

    Two things are going on here and I know that you are just going to slam me but I will say it anyway. Normally I find your blog funny, as I do have a sense of humor. I too think that the industry as a whole needs some repair.

    True, and I’m glad you have a sense of humor. I do too, and if you think I treat drug reps in my store like I rag on them on here you are mistaken. I dont care what they have to say, but i’ve never crumpled up a business card and thrown it at them screaming. I just smile and nod as I’m up to my neck in Rx’s and answering the phone. As they are reciting their little speech about how wonderful the next $400 wonder drug is, I say “oh really?” and an occational “uh huh, wow!”. But to be honest I dont really have time to sit there and grill them.

    But maybe, just maybe, you have interviewed for a position as a drug rep, and you just don’t cut it? So you are disgruntled? There is alot more to being a rep than throwing out pens, ect. I will put my knowledge of the 4 drugs that I sell up against any MD or Pharm any day of the week.

    Oh, yeah… I couldn’t make it as a drug rep so I decided to be a pharmacist instead. You know, because I am incapable of knowing 4 drugs yet somehow capable of knowing all of the major classes, the disease states, the mechanism of action, and everything else that goes into being a pharmacist. Head, meet desk.
    You can put your knowledge of the whole 4 drugs you know against my knowledge of not only those same drugs, but the treatment plans for what they treat, their mechanism of action, what patient population you can and cannot use (based upon how its cleared), AND who covers them.
    Dont compare your knowledge of 4 whole drugs against an MD and think you’re some hot-shit or something. Anyone can walk circles around them in pharmacotherapy-land much like MD’s can run circles around me quoting excerpts from ‘Harrisons’ and diagnosing Wierdo-McButtfuck-Syndrome. So I’ll say this: Maybe YOU tried to become a pharmacist and couldnt cut it so became a drug rep instead.

    You and the docs have to somewhat know the PDR

    PDR?!?! HAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaa……. *gasp* HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA*snort*AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAA!!! PDR!!!! Oh fuck! Somewhat?!! HAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAA!!
    That quote right there just completely blew your whole argument right out of the water. The PDR is shit. Any pharmacist who uses the PDR needs to be publicly drug out into the parking lot and shot. Pharmacists use books that manufacturers dont PAY MONEY to have put in there. We use Facts & Comparisons, Lexicomp, or any other REAL pharmacy reference (Remingtons for the hard core old timers out there! Go big green book!). We pay big dollars for our reference books. We also use pubmed to get journal articles (you know, those pieces of paper you give to doctors in the nice binders printed on glossy paper with the big words and weird looking graphs on them). Pharmacists use unbiased sources and draw their own conclusions using the available data, its what doctors should be doing as well.

    , we have to know our products.

    You dont know your product, you recite what the mothership has brainwashed you with. Did you take pharmacology? No. Did you go to college to learn about therapeutics and treatment standards? No. You got the pharmacy cliff-note version of “here is what you need to know”. Memorizing numbers and figures and fancy acronyms for studies that spell out things like SHIELD and stuff.

    Or maybe, you are a fat,ugly nerdy type with no personality, and a good looking woman ( drug rep or not ) will not give you the time of day?

    Well you are a poo-poo-head dummy butthole. I’m taking my wagon and going home because you called me names!
    Actually I (and im sure most of the people on here) wish that no drug rep would give us the time of day. And how can you say with a straight face that I have no personality! Look at what I write on here! I have talent!

    Because your anger towards women in general comes out loudly.

    Because every comment about drug-reps I make involves women? Hate to tell you, but most MD’s that actually listen to your bullshit are men. Plain and simple. For some reason the women doctors around here dont really care what you have to say and I get far less DAW-1’s and your silly drug-rep stamps from the women then I do from the men. Plus most if not all of the female drug reps (and I see a ton of them) are really hot. I can talk about the male drug reps giving.. uh.. lapdances? to the female doctors? yeeaah.. with his low cut pants?… uhhh.. suuuuure…. doesnt really have the same effect, sorry.
    But you’re right. I hate women. I’m only engaged to one, and work with a whole staff of them for 9 hours a day. Does it count if I beat them with my belt? What if I make them worship me and call me “Your royal angryness” (that sorta has a nice ring to it)… “A new Rx on line 3 your royal angryness!”… “Yes your royal angryness, I shall get you the tramadol 50 and count thee 60 of them”… “Your royal angryness, there is a woman here who says her vico-dans were flush down the privy. What shall we do with her sir?”…
    Give me a break, seriously.

    Normally I laugh at your blog, but your anger has taken a dark turn towards people who are just like you, trying to make a living in an increasingly difficult world run by insurance companies.

    Ever think that maybe the company you work for is part of the problem and not the solution? Wonder why insurance is so damn high now days? You think the insurance companies like your little speeches to change everyone from a product that costs them $5 to one that costs them $200? I realize you are making a living selling something, but its just that, selling something. You are a salesmen, not a consultant but a salesman. Quit acting like you are a consultant to a doctor/pharmacist (or part of the treatment “Team”) and start acting like the commercials I see on TV.

    And one more thing, as you rail against people and their habits or addictions. Alcohol is an addiction too…you just are able to buy it in any store..so when you talk about your drinking in relation to the people that you despise with addictions to rx-meds, perhaps you need to look in the mirror?

    If I give a liquor store owner both barrels because I drank my whole bottle of scotch in 3 days when it was supposed to last a month even though the directions say “1 glass at bedtime” then yeah, I expect to be bitched about. I don’t rail on them for being addicts, I rail on them for being so dense and oblivious to the stupidity they inflict upon the world then giving me both barrels thinking its all MY fault. Am I out selling my booze that I got for FREE on the state dime? Do I lie and make up stories to the liquor store man so I can buy another bottle?

    Later TAP.

    Thats TAP(tm) (I know the angriest is watching). Are you really a drug rep? Or is someone playing a joke on me. Seriously, for someone who has been a drug rep for “10 years” i expected something a bit more.. uh.. realistic?

    Hate Mail

    Pharmacist Hate mail!

    12 Comments

    Ah, I love it when I get hate mail from other pharmacists. After reading this over, I mostly agree with him/her (surprisingly). Though I dont think CVS wants this persons name attached to what he/she wrote.

    1) You don’t have the staff to handle the load from mail order pharmacies
    if they disappeared tomorrow.

    You meaning me personally? No, you have me there god dammit. If every mail order place closed and they all came to /my/ store, then I guess I’d be up shit creek without a paddle. So would you. Thats sorta like saying “If someone drove a car through your front room, you’d be upset”. Pretty much a big “Duh” there.

    2) I get one of my meds via mail-order, because I got tired of paying 3
    copays when I could do 1 instead. I’m not an idiot for doing this.

    Then don’t bitch when your patients jump ship and do it to you. Of course I see that you take gifts from drug-reps, so that says something. At least you had the common sense to throw out the DAW-1 forms when the Coreg vultures came circling pushing Coreg ER. I did the same thing too, but I didn’t get any loot from them. Actually I told them they were a bunch of liars for pushing Coreg just months before, but suddenly going against all they told me once the generic came out for $5 per 100. Amazing how all those studies just aren’t worth dick if the drug company that paid for them isn’t making a $100+ profit from each Rx that I fill. Thank you Mylan for making generic Coreg so inexpensive.
    Working in a pharmacy Im surprised you even have to pay copays for your medication. Even I dont have to pay the $25 copay on my medication. 🙂

    3) You bitch and moan about “kickbacks”. Sounds to me like you’re a whiney
    independent pharmacist pissed off because you don’t have the economies of
    scale that a mail order house does. (And neither do the big chains,
    incidentally.) Since you’re throwing out some pretty serious accusations,
    you should offer some sort of proof. But since you’re full of shit on this
    particular point, you can’t. Go ahead, though, I’ll wait to see what you
    come up with.

  • Why do insurance companies mandate their patients go to a mail order pharmacy? Say, like Express Scripts. The ones that don’t mandate it by flat out rejecting the claim penalize the patient by a higher copay. Doesn’t that sound wrong? If they gave a choice as to which retail outlets is one thing, but to mandate they go to their mail order pharmacy exclusively sounds like a huge conflict of interest. I mean that would be like saying that WHI (Walgreens Health Initative) can only get their Rx’s filled at Walgreens. Or that Blue Cross patients could only go to one doctor (and no other doctors could see these patients). Explain to me how Express Scripts can actually get away by forcing their patients to use their outfit even though they wish to go to me or you to get actual “service”.
  • Why can’t retail outfits buy “Mail Order Only” diabetic test strips (say by AccuChek) at a discounted price? What’s so special about these ‘Mail Order Only’ strips and why are they cheaper for Mail Order than regular retail stores? Why brand them differently? If bulk is the answer, then whats the point of re branding them vs just selling them at a lower price to the mail order outlets like all the other medications? Why is it illegal for Retail outlets to even carry Mail Order branded strips?
  • You can call it rebates/kickbacks/bribes whatever, the fact of the matter is that Mail Order Pharmacies get special treatment that retail outlets don’t. You would think that Walgreens/RiteAid/CVS (ahem) would get some sort of pricing break since they obviously dispense more Rx’s/day combined than the mail order outlets.
    Read the comments of the people who get screwed due to “mandatory mail order”.

    Yeah yeah insurance companies are the devil, I won’t argue with you there.
    You’re not stupid, you knew that before getting into this business.

    By the email you sent me you assume that I am. Insurance companies didn’t use to be like this, you and I both know this. Its spiraled out of control.

    4) I called Walgreens last week for a transfer, and I got some kid with a
    fucking stuttering problem. “W-w-w-waaaa m-m-m-may I [something]?”
    “Uh, what?”
    Repeats himself.
    “Uh, what?”
    Repeats himself.
    “I have no idea what you’re saying to me. I need to speak to the
    pharmacist.”
    “W-w-w-algreens m-m-may I h-help you?!”
    “Oh. That’s what you said. I need to speak to the pharmacist.” (Thinking
    “WTF” at this point because I had the pharmacy for 5 seconds before they
    put me on hold for ten minutes then this kid picks up the phone, and I’m
    thinking I got transferred to a psych hospital or something.)
    How in the fuck is this good customer service?

    Uh, did I say this is good customer service? Or is this just an aside from the whole bitch on how much i’m wrong. Whenever I get copies from Walgreens I just call the ‘Doctor Line’ and leave a message with what I want.

    “Ok, I am just a tech, but I am also a pre-pharm student, so when I read
    this I see my future going down the drain.”
    TAP is a drama queen. It’s what makes his writing compelling. It’s like
    dessert, a little is good, a lot is just sickening. You need more than just
    TAP if you want to get an accurate picture of the profession today. Enjoy
    it, but don’t read any more into it than one man’s thoughts. Always
    remember that someone has been prophesying doom and gloom for every
    profession on the goddamn planet since time began. Pharmacy included. You
    might want to diversify your reading a little bit, and read someone like
    Jim Plagakis instead of just TAP.
    If you hate retail pharmacy, it’s probably because you have/had a shitty
    mentor.
    And don’t ever say you’re “just” anything. Let your words speak for
    themselves.
    The impression I get is that TAP is also an independent pharmacy elitist.
    (After all, everyone else is “shitting on the little guy,” why not the big
    chains, too?) Most of the chain stores in my area are run far more
    effectively than the few independents around here, which leads me to
    believe it’s a local problem for him.
    You can still do a great job working for a big company, and you still deal
    with the same ground-level shit as anyone else behind the counter,
    independent or otherwise.

    Shitting on the little guy? When did I say the chains were shitting on the little guy (or even imply the idea)? I was making a joke that the Walgreens distro warehouses hires retarded folk and how that relates to me getting copies from their store. The retarded folk dont even work in the retail stores but the warehouses! The post you were responding to was regard to Mail-Order (which do shit on the retail folk) and really had nothing to do with the chains! Hell, I’d rather transfer the Rx to a chain that I know will actually /see/ the patient than some Mail Order place who will lose their medication.
    However from reading how you handled the Walgreen example above, I think you’re just a bitter unhappy pharmacist like the rest of us. Welcome to the club. All I hear from patients all day is how Walgreens take 2 hours to fill their Rx while the pharmacists just sit there and drink coffee as they offload the script-pro. Patient care has taken a back-seat to a quota that corporate imposes on the chains. I have worked in a chain, I’ve worked in a hospital, and I choose to call home in a small family owned store that does about 300 rx’s a day without any fancy phone answering machines or bazillion dollar counting machines. If someone stays on hold for more than 2 min’s I start to drop everything and answer it. My livelihood isn’t shielded by corporate offices and mega-funds, but the honest-to-god service that I dish out on a daily basis. If I give you totally shitty service, the store gets no patients and I don’t get paid. I don’t have a mega-corp guaranteeing that my paycheck will clear every 2 weeks. I think that says something vs the pharmacist who never talks to patients, just sits in the back and answers the phone, and has a bunch of barely trained clerk-typists pounding away on 1000 keyboards as the script-pro machine churns out drugs by the hundreds. That being said, I have seen the kind of service that I dish out in every chain on the planet. So don’t get your panties all up your crack thinking i’m ragging on your precious CVS.
    Some of the best pharmacists that I have ever met (and who have a huge following) used to own their own stores, and now work for some of the mega-chains because they don’t want to deal with the shit that running a business takes. One of the things you’ll learn in pharmacy is that the pharmacist makes or breaks the store. I’m sorry if I act like an elitist (and actually /care/ about people). I don’t shovel out Rx’s by the truckload, and actually will go out and explain medications to people that they got filled at a chain store (even CVS).
    On the comment about reading this site and seeing the downward spiral of pharmacy:
    Why would anyone with half a brain read a blog saying “The Angry Pharmacist” and expect anything other than the bitching and rants from the profession? Lets take the 0.02% of pharmacy that really pisses us all off, and judge the whole profession by it! If you work retail, and you hate retail, then something is wrong with either the place you work or you just happened to draw a really shitty staff. Even I don’t hate retail. By reading only this site you are looking at only a small portion of one side of the coin, and I’ve said it time and time again that you need to take what i say here (or what the DrugNazi says, or what the angriest pharmacist says thats what we say but changed a bit) with a grain of salt and not the gospel. You just gotta laugh, relate, and move on.
    I am not “prophesying doom and gloom”. I’m telling it how it is. Plain and simple. Colleges have banned my site from their school networks because of this. Of course pharmacy school students just love me, other pharmacists love me, and (some) doctors love me. It gives us all a common place to bitch, laugh, and relate to frustrations of a very stressful profession.

    • Hate Mail

    Oh yay, another uppity Medicaid person.

    38 Comments

    Usually I get a few bitches a month about my Clomid + Medicaid rant. About every other one is written by a complete idiot. You make the call as to which one this is.

    Are you stupid? Welfare and Medicaid are NOT the same. We’re not bums. WQe
    work. Medicaid is to help those who cant afford the high costs of
    insurance. So you’re saying someione who is dissabled and on ssi or welfare
    or medicaid is a bum?? Get your facts straight dummy. And you shouldnt be a
    pharmacist.

    Oh yay! Where should I start:

  • Welfare and Medicaid are not the same? Well according to Wikipedia: Medicaid is the United States health program for individuals and families with low incomes and resources. It is jointly funded by the states and federal government, and is managed by the states. Among the groups of people served by Medicaid are eligible low-income parents, children, seniors, and people with disabilities. Medicaid is the largest source of funding for medical and health-related services for people with limited income. That sounds pretty much like welfare to me.
  • I dont know where you got the bum idea. Obviously you are so ignorant that you walk around with a Medicaid chip on your shoulder looking for a fight. The whole rant you were complaining about was that Medicaid patients (who you say are “dissabled and on ssi or welfare
    or medicaid”) should not be entitled to fertility drugs. So am I mean for making a legit point? Or are you just an idiot for wanting to bring children into this world that you self-proclaim you cannot afford.
    I’m not against having children (unless you’re 14, more on that later), just not while you require society’s dime to survive. I guess common sense like that is why I’m a pharmacist and you aren’t.

    • Hate Mail

    Let loose the nurses of war!

    49 Comments

    One (1), uno, a single person had a complaint about my Nurse vs NA/MA rant.

    I am a 17 year old girl in my senior year of high school. Im in the miami
    valley career tech center. This is my second year in the MVCTC. I am taking
    allied health. I have always wanted to be a nurse as far back as i can
    remember. My program has already went on clinicals and everything and we
    are trying our best to learn everything as quick as possible. I think that
    NA’s and MA’s should be able to call themselves some what of a nurse
    because after all thats what we are going to school to be is a nurse. I
    also dont think people should run their mouths about people who call
    themselves nurses because its none of anyones buisness so leave it alone.
    Our teachers that teach us here are all very good RN’s that know what they
    are doing!!!!!!!! SO STOP YOUR SHIT AND GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Ah, to be young again. Honey, you’re going to find out later on in life that if you call yourself something that you are not, especially in the medical field, you are going to get in a whole pot of deep hot shit. Comparing your education to someone with a BS degree in nursing is really insulting to those who actually went to college for 4+ years to get an RN. Names and titles are reserved for those who actually earn that title. See, the ‘A’ in your title stands for ASSISTANT. Therefore you are a Nursing ASSISTANT not a NURSE. You can call yourself an NA or a MA until the cows come home, just don’t call yourself a nurse. In fact, you don’t even call yourself a ‘woman’, but a ‘girl’. Afraid someone is going to call you out that you are in fact a girl and not a ‘woman’?
    And yes, It is my business to know exactly who I am talking to on the phone, because you may not realize this now, but when I ask you a question, and you guess an answer (because you are not an RN, and you think its okay to just guess) and someone dies, its my ass, not yours. I’m not saying that you all are a bunch of idiots, but my pharmacy techs don’t run around calling themselves Pharmacists, so you shouldn’t call yourselves a nurse. See what your RN teachers think about that.
    Now what you should be worried about is the influx of angry nurses who are going to chew your ass a new one when they read this post. Of course its best to have this happen on the internet than in front of everyone in a hospital where they can see you cry.
    I’m going to enjoy this. Nurses, you know what to do! Get your friends in on this. Lets make something she can print out and hand to her teachers who think its okay that they call themselves nurses.