I had planned to make a big announcement about my new job when I started, just before my first official shift, but anyone who reads my blog regularly already knows about me starting work because I told you recently because of a blunder, and, well, anyone else just found out! So no announcement. Just a reminder really that I am OFFICIALLY starting my new job on Saturday 29th April, 2017.
My official pharmacist coat, the first time I’ve gotten to wear the traditional garb; my keys to EVERYTHING; a pink, personalised name badge; pocket with a pen holder, and I’m ready to go!
It’s not such a big thing, really, as I’ve already done 8 shifts over the last few weeks. Wow, eight shifts already! That crept up on me. Five of them were half days, but still; it’s work! I was really thankful that my new boss was as keen as I was for me to get in several practice shifts before I started, and it has helped me to feel comfortable and confident heading into my first shift. It has given me a chance for reacquaint myself with the FRED dispensing program, although pretty much nothing has changed since I last used it in 2009! It’s such an easy to use program compared to the 2 hospital pharmacy programs that I’ve used over the last 7 years, and nearly all of the scripts scan in; no typing involved! So cool! I’m still in love with this function!!
My name up in official pharmacy lights!
It’s given me the opportunity to learn the “order” of how drugs are arranged in the pharmacy. This is one of those words that means the opposite of what you would think…oxymoron? I think that’s the word. See whereas hospitals organise their medications sensibly by the drug name (generic name) in alphabetical order, community pharmacies have ridiculous systems, and no one, including those that work there, really know why they have such a dysfunctional “system”, and the system is different in every pharmacy.
In this pharmacy, originally drugs/medications were ordered A to Z by brand name, instead of generic drug name. Fair enough. Back when, before additional brand names and generic brand names, there was one brand name for each drug and everyone knew the brand name for each drug. Drugs were marketed by brand names and that’s mostly what they were referred to as by medical staff. So this system worked as an actual system.
Here’s that dispensary I’ve been telling you about
Then drugs started going ‘off patent’. This meant that other drug companies were allowed to come along after and use the generic drug that the original drug company had committed 10 to 15 years of research and development to, make their own formulation and sell it. Not having to spend any of that time in R & D, and just having to more or less copy what the first company has done means the new version, or “the generic” can be vastly cheaper! Their version has to be approved by the Australian Government as working in the same way, having the same drug and dosage, and having equivalent efficacy when compared to the original brand, and once this process is complete, the drug gets on the PBS like the original and off we go.
So we got the first batch of second brand names, that were still actually names. Like instead of Noten, we got Tenormin. So now we had two brand names; that was manageable. And then generics went bananas!! They stopped bothering with brand names and just wanted to spruick their company name. So instead of usable names like Noten and Tenormin that were brand names for atenolol, we got drug company names attached to the generic name like APO-atenolol, Terry White-atenolol, Chemmart-atenolol, atenolol-Amneal, atenolol-Sandoz and so on and so forth! You get the never-ending gist. A quick look online tells me that atenolol is available in 15 different brands in Australia.* In America it’s gone much more ridiculous with 143 companies making atenolol generics, and 289 brand names, all slight versions of the one before!!**
How is this relevant to me working in the dispensary? The dispensary is organised by brand name. Then the generic brand comes along and it gets its own slot. Noten is under N, Tenormin is under T. All is well. Then the company name generics come in. Our store has a deal with APO generics so where available we buy the APO generic. But it doesn’t make sense to put every generic in the A for APO section! So the generics get put away by the generic name. Atenolol still ends up in A, but APO-escitalopram goes in E and etc. Except sometimes you go to find APO-hydroxocobalamin and it’s not in H. You ask someone where you might find it and they go straight to N. You ask why, and the answer is: the original brand name was Neo-B12. Yes, that is true, but…”yeah we should move it, we should do that, we’ll do that”. But that was half the point of getting in a few shifts before the real thing, to work out some of these quirks. Another thing: in an effort to be helpful, someone decided that the top 20 most dispensed drugs should be moved out of order to the front of the stands for easy access. Sounds sort of reasonable, but its kind of annoying to go the S and remember, no, its not here, its in the section that I’ve already walked past! But hey, I’ve been able to yammer on about it this much so some of it must have sunk in.
So this shift on Saturday is my first shift “alone” as the “only” pharmacist in the pharmacy; definitely ideal for me. I say those things in talking marks because there will actually be another pharmacist out in the back room working on our supply of medications to 18 nursing homes at all times while I’m out front; another one of the ideal things about this position. So I will never be without a second opinion or some advice or instruction on how to do something that hasn’t cropped up so far, and that sounds great by me! Not that I’ll need it necessarily, but popping out the back to ask someone a quick question is much less full on than having to call the boss on a Saturday!
*http://www.nps.org.au/medicines/heart-blood-and-blood-vessels/beta-blocker-medicines/atenolol
**http://www.medindia.net/drug-price/atenolol.htm
L i f e - be IN it! 