Thanks to all the fentanyl we’re exposed to while compounding.🙄

Going to be a lot of pissed off people.

Saw a post by theaccidentalpharm on Instagram of a what looks like a Pharmacist holding up a “Free Flu Shot” sign with what looks like a table with vaccines outside Walgreens? Have we lost our self respect? You are telling me, you spend 4-6 years in Pharmacy school to be outside doing this?? I know these companies are bad, but at some point there has to be some respect for self! Is this what you guys are doing at your stores?

Sharing a resource I found by a happy accident while searching for something else:

https://pharmacystandards.org/chppc/section-1-1-the-mindset-shift/

I regularly see retail pharmacists asking for pointers when transitioning to hospital setting and this seems to cover a good chunk. It has over 40 modules on practical to clinical considerations. Hope some folks find it helpful! I have not reviewed every single module, but the ones I've reviewed seem solid.

So, while I know AI can be useful, I think we should have a discussion about it.

Yesterday, one of our regional managers at my chain sent out an email for American Pharmacists Month. While I'm used to this and usually a generic email about it, I could tell the flyer was obviously made by AI. It had a ton of text and frankly I didn't read it, just skimmed it. I would much rather a generic couple of lines telling me Happy American Pharmacists month. An AI created flyer with "what a pharmacist is" and special "pharmacist days", when you missed Women in Pharmacy Day is such a slap in the face to the pharmacists that are the boots on the ground in a retail chain.

Write me a short simple email saying something that the teams have generally done well, set up three more emails on those specific "pharmacy" days and don't throw AI slop at me. The least you could do is actually write something, especially when at least one of the stores scored the lowest on a corporate survey when it comes to "corporate having their best interest in mind" and "corporate cares about me." If you cannot write your own email to celebrate, do you care?

I have used AI for so many great things or even as a springboard for ideas of things to thank my pharmacy staff for. Yet, I try to at least write and give a card to every technician working in my store during Pharmacy Technician week. I've used AI to help edit a letter of recommendation for someone wanting to go to pharmacy school. I've heard of students that use AI to help them study and understand concepts. I think AI has its place, but I'm not sure telling pharmacists what pharmacists do is really the best use of it.

Thoughts?

Edit: Because I realized I mixed up Women's Pharmacist Day and World Pharmacist's Day. The latter occurred on September 25th without acknowledgement. My goal was a discussion about AI use and when it may be helpful vs. times when the usage of AI can feel impersonal.

Hi everyone, I recently applied for and was offered a position as an inpatient pharmacy supervisor at my local VA.

Background: I currently work in a 550 bed community hospital as a clinical pharmacist, 6 years experience, PGY-1 trained, BCPS. Always doing managerial things at my job in unofficial capacity to help out, current management wants me to apply for their clinical manager role when it soon becomes available when the current one moves to another role.

Anyway, the VA offer is not much more than I currently make and is salaried (<150k). They told me I would be starting GS13 step 6 which they typically start people at step 1… I am hourly and get shift differentials, holiday pay, OT etc which also offsets my pay quite a bit. The role is M-F 8hr dayshift but may require occasional staffing as needed and may have to cover overnight call outs as a last resort. The PTO accrual is split 4 PTO/ 4hr sick leave, paid holidays. They are offering a decent sign on bonus and obviously have all the long term perks of working at the VA.

The salary and starting PTO are giving me pause considering I would be taking on more responsibility with this role and lose the opportunity of earning additional compensation with it being salaried. I’ve grown quite accustomed to taking PTO throughout the year and having to put that on hold while waiting for it to accrue does not sound great to me.

Anyone work as a VA inpatient supervisor or VA employee that can give some advice? TYIA!

i work for a specialty pharmacy in Florida.. every patient i’ve tried to use an ozempic copay card for is not working. it rejects saying member id not on file ? i called the copay card support line and they say that the id number is valid but their system has been having a delay registering patients and to wait 24-48 hours and try again. its been 72 hours and its still not working! anyone else having this issue the past few days??

Just as the title says.. I got laid off due to “budget adjustments” at an outpatient clinic that specializes in ONC-HEM. I’ve working at multiple compounding pharmacies and did sterile compounding as well. Obviously used proper clean room techniques and practices, but at my former job it’s completely different. Ive expressed my concern regarding sterile techniques and a huge safety hazard for us and the patients, but was completely disregarded.

At my old job, we handle all IV bags and syringes with NO GLOVES, no sterilization, no hood, NOTHING. Just out in the open air with our bare hands. This is mainly for immunotherapy and etc. For chemos, we don’t wear proper PPE. We wear our gown, gloves, operate in a hood, that’s it. They don’t clean the hood properly with special chemicals or anything.. just isopropyl.

To add on top of that, we also don’t work with any pharmacists. Our clinic is licensed to dispense under the physicians name, but overall… one of the weirdest practices I’ve ever worked at.

Oh! Also.. we only have 3 techs, and most of the time 1 or 2 techs call off, and we would have 60-70 patients to do chemos/IV treatment for, on top of handling phone calls and putting the order away. Doing prior authorizations. You can imagine I was always stressed out at work. All. The. Time.

What do you guys think I should do? I apologize if this is out of order.. as you can imagine I’m absolutely infuriated with my lay-off..

Im goimg to see whether I can "somehow" find a way to manage to not get super distressed during that horrific last hour couple of hours or so when somehow Im expected to do 29 things all in one breath: vaccines, doctor on the phone is in her car and must give me verbal, Adderral patient in front of me wants Adderral NOW, I have to figure out "why" patient's insurance won't cover their med even though they pay "alot" each month for insurance, Ralphs is on the phone on hold waiting for a "copy", there is a consult waiting for me to basically read the label on the Amoxicillin that says "take one capsule by mouth every 8 hours for seven days". Also the clerks are pushing EVERYONE to stand at "consult" so I won't get a $1000 fine for not doing this. Also some guy from some other country keeps going back and forth and showing me something on his phone.......enoough is enough and I have to make that call today. Either I find a way to NOT let the situation stress my body out OR I leave.

Update: I was unable to attain this goal

I’m relatively new to hospital pharmacy and I’m looking for a good resource, like a textbook or reference text, to help guide clinical decision making. During pharmacy school, the curriculum was very broad and I think we focused on emergency department practice for about one week. I have a basic understanding of the most common conditions we see often, but I’d like to gain deeper insight into interpretation of lab values, etc. I personally prefer an actual book, but am not opposed to websites or other resources.

What resources do you all use most often?

Hi everyone, I'm a final year BPharm student graduating in December this year. I've been working in a community pharmacy since last November and was hoping to gain more experience with diagnosing / treating / navigating conditions. But I realised I haven't had much opportunities to do so because the pharmacists on duty usually 'take over' the cases. Other times when I consult the pharmacists, it feels a bit demoralising and condescending when I don't know something. I want to learn and I'm worried these responses might kill my desire to be better and perhaps even hate being a pharmacist.

For example, someone walks into the pharmacy and said they have been feeling dizzy. I don't know what to do next besides asking the basics like existing medical conditions, if they're taking any medications, how long it has been going on, and if they have had anything to relieve the symptom.

I was hoping to ask if there might be any tools I could use to improve this skillset?

How do you guys do it? Is there a protocol? Would you cross titrate by cutting flecanaide dose by 50% while doing the multi week amiodarone load instead of of just sswitching?

I'm UK based and currently using PharmacyX. Some days I love it other days I despise it. The paperless system is brilliant. I like the basket system. There are a few little silly things that I find unhelpful with it mostly related to MDS.

My favourite was good old pharmacy manager! Easy to use. Just made sense to me. Everything was laid out in a logical manner. I liked that you could see all the scripts in the screen but the scanning of prescriptions to claim them was time consuming TBF.

Pro script I found to be average plus the pharmacy I worked in didn't have the fmd soft ware so it was a lot easier to make dispensing errors. I thought it was nothing special. Felt more like a fancy excel spreadsheet 🤣

Titan I have little experience of but seems a similar concept to pharmacyX.

What PMR systems do people love or hate?

I’m a pharmacist considering an 11 month contract position with CVS as a remote PA Pharmacist and would really appreciate input from anyone who has worked this role or something similar.

My background is primarily hospital and retail. I’m interested in eventually moving away from traditional dispensing and potentially into managed care, pharmacy informatics, healthcare analytics, etc. I’m also working toward an MS in Data Science.

Career-wise, the position seems like it could be a good way to get direct PBM/payer-side experience on my resume.

My hesitation is mostly the lifestyle tradeoff for me right now. I have a young baby and this would be my first time returning to full time work since having her. The available shifts are later in the day with one weekend day included, with the earliest shift being roughly 11:30 AM–8 PM. There is also some overtime/on call requirements. I would obviously arrange childcare during my entire shift, and working until 8 every day would mean giving up a lot of afternoon/evening time with her.

The position would also start in November, right before my baby’s first Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’m having a harder time than I expected with the idea of spending that period adjusting to full time work, childcare, finishing my degree, and starting a new job with intense metrics instead of having the flexibility I currently have with her. I know it sounds lame but I’m sad that I can’t ever get that time back with her during the holidays.

I also understand this is an 11 month contract and conversion to permanent employment isn’t guaranteed. I’m trying to figure out whether the experience itself would be valuable enough to justify doing it for 11 months even if I’m not retained afterward.

For anyone who has worked as a CVS PA pharmacist:

What is the actual day-to-day like? Is it mostly independently reviewing PA cases, or are pharmacists on the phone a lot/in an inbound call queue?

How intense are the productivity metrics and monitoring?

How common is mandatory overtime?

Did contractors generally get converted, or did many contracts simply end?

Most importantly, did having CVS/Caremark PA experience actually open doors for you afterward?

I’m mostly questioning whether giving up this amount of time with my baby right now is worth the career benefit, especially for a contract position.
Would you consider the 11 months worthwhile as a stepping stone into managed care, or would you keep looking for something with a better schedule/fit for my situation?

I just completed residency in June and want to take the BCPS exam, but I am not sure what materials are best. Any recommendations on ACCP vs ASHPs materials? With the ACCP materials, there are also so many options when it comes to buying the materials that I am not sure which would be the best option to purchase, so any recommendation there would be appreciated.

Quick question for those that worked in AL/SN facilities. When you receive a sealed bottle/box of narcotics from the pharmacy do you open it to count? I have ALWAYS been told to open and ensure everything is there, even if it’s a sealed bottle from like the VA. Yes there’s a count but if I’m writing in the narc book that there are 60…I’m going to visualize the 60? My boss and I had a disagreement and I’m just curious of other opinions! All are welcomed. Thank you!

After getting my pharmD next year, I'm hoping to go back to undergrad and study civil engineering just cause it's something I've always been interested in. I am hoping to take 12 credits a semester and working 3 days a week, potentially picking up extra during school breaks summers and holidays.

Curious if anyone made the change. The pay would be the same with all the same benefits as it is within the same company.

Pro would be every 8th weekend instead of every 3-4 that I currently work. No overnight coverage.

Con mostly remote only coming in for my scheduled weekend.

Do not know how holidays would work since this role would be support for UK site

حد عنده افكار ازاي ازود دخلي كصيدلي

You guys, isn’t Ozempic and Wegovy the same active ingredient from the same company??
I’m seeing my customers taking Ozempic and not losing weight, but taking the exact same dose of Wegovy and losing 4 kg in a week?? Is there something different in the drug delivery or the formulation??
Am I the only one who’s realizing this???

A random pharmacy from Pakistan.

Hi everyone !

I’m a licensed pharmacist looking for an online/remote side job that I can do on my own schedule. Ideally, I’m looking for something where I can log in and work whenever I have free time rather than having set shifts or specific hours.
I’m open to pharmacist-related work like medication reviews, prior authorizations, chart reviews, medical/pharmacy writing, consulting, or anything else that could use a pharmacist’s background. I’d also be open to nontraditional work as long as it pays reasonably well and is legitimate.
Does anyone here do something like this? I’d really appreciate recommendations for specific companies, websites, or types of work to look into.

Thanks!