A Meetup with the Walgreens District Manager - Part 3

[Note: Here's the final part. A quick talk about career paths, Q&A, and some closing comments. The responses are of course not word for word. Just paraphrased as best as I could manage.]

Rhonda: I wanted to work with people, so I chose community pharmacy. That's what attracted me as opposed to hospitals. There are hundreds of career paths as a licensed pharmacist. Once you finish, once you pass the board of pharmacy exam, from there the world of pharmacy is open to you. A lot of pharmacy students don't become aware until their third year at how open the world is. There's research, academia, compounding, nuclear, pediatric, and geriatric. You'll never be bored. If you don;t like it you can move on. Some of you will go onto a residency for special training for an additional year. There's ambulatory care, acute care, inpatient. You'll figure that out when you do your rotations. From there you can choose your path.

Any questions?

Q: Do you have any interesting stories?

A: (Stephanie) - You meet a lot of different people, meet a lot of different populations. I did compounding in a mental health clinic. You see a lot of interesting patients and will be able to apply a lot of stuff from class to real life situations. I got to do a lot of vaccinations and immunizations. You learn how to guide your interview differently with different patients. That takes experience and what I got through the rotations. They weren't all one on ones with the patient, sometimes one on one with their nurse or doctor.

Q: I passed the PTCE and am waiting for my license to arrive. Should I wait for the physical license to arrive before applying? Or should I just apply now? [Asked by me if you couldn't tell.]

A: You should apply now, just make sure to mention when you sent in your application. Some managers are planning out a couple months in advance. But for some reason, lately, our pharm techs have had to wait 4 to 5 months for their license. Until you get it, you might work as a cashier or a clerk. Or you might just be answering phones, but you'll still get experience from that.

[Note: 4 to 5 months! That was certainly shocking/disappointing information. However, even with that tip to apply now, I might still wait. More on that in a future post.]

Q: Healthcare reform has been all over the news. What are your opinions on this? [Note: I didn't mark down in my notes when the response changed from Stephanie to Rhonda, so I just made my best guess.]

A: Stephanie - In one of my classes, we're debating the healthcare reform bill and wanting to reduce costs. In the end you'll still have pharmacists. It'll be competitive in terms of profitability, but we have an aging population, and people are living longer. The need for medication will still be there. The role of pharmacists will still be there.

Rhonda - It's also evolving and changing. We're not just dispensing. We do things like MTM and other things that add value to our services as pharmacists. This one seriously impact our career in our lifetime. There won't be an overabundance of pharmacists due to that aging population. There is a hazard, but from what I can see, it goes in a cycle. Sometimes we're totally short. We just finished that cycle. For the last 10 years we were scrambling. Hospitals, Walgreens, everybody. In the last two years we have not been scrambling. But that's not to say that the unemployment rate isn't high. But it comes in cycles and right now you're 4 to 5 years away so there's time for things to change again.

Q: Are people hiring pharm techs?

A: Maybe not hiring as fast or as much as 2 or 2 1/2 years ago. Reimbursement rates from insurance is decreasing rapidly. And the techs are the first to go. It's a little bit tight right now, but certainly not totally impossible. Apply to as many places as you can. All chains and independent pharmacies.

If there aren't any more questions, I'd like to end with a few words.

I'm excited for you guys. I think it's a great profession. I've really enjoyed it these past 20 years. I've never regretted it. It's been really rewarding from one to one interaction, to now, which is less so. It's a great profession. I think you'll really enjoy it. Starting salary has always been way up there. You won't starve as a pharmacist, so that will be good. And it's very flexible. Don't let the cost of pharmacy school deter you.

Something that I see a lot are people being really focused on "I need to stay in California. I need to stay in SF." I see a lot of my techs applying to only two schools. Some apply to more, but it's usually UCSD and UCSF. I know it's costly, but throw in two or three out of state schools. At least you'll have an option and you're not standing there for a year wondering what to do.

Healthcare Passes Through the House

Here are the links to yahoo news and cnn.com about the situation. The cnn.com article even has a link to the entire 1990 pages of the bill in pdf format. As much as I'd like to know the details as opposed to the catch phrases that are passed around in the media, there's no way I'm going to get through reading it all.

One sad thing about the bill however, is the section that has to deal with abortion. I'm sure everyone's heard all the arguments, and everyone has their own stance on the situation and no amount of logical debate is going to change anyone's mind. But with that said, it really annoys me when people say they putting restrictions on funding for abortions is going to reduce the amount of unwanted pregnancies and through that, the amount of abortions.

Sex isn't about logic. It's about hormones and emotions. People are stupid when it comes to sex and no one is going to think, "Oh no! There's no federal funding for me to get an abortion if I get pregnant/get her pregnant! I guess we won't have unprotected sex now!" or "It feels good to have that federal funding for abortion as a back up in case this condom doesn't work, because it's only 99% effective. If that federal funding wasn't there, I don't know if I could have the courage to go through with it."

Have your reasons and your beliefs for or against abortion for whatever religious or ethical reasons you want, but trying to make a logical argument against it with this specific argument is ridiculous.

UCSF Pharmacy Day (Hosted by CSHSP)

Back to UCSF already. This time it was much easier to get there, and easy to find the HSW building. There were even some convenient signs pointing the way, even though I already pretty much knew how to get there.

-- Free Health Screenings (Diabetes, Cholesterol, and Hypertension)

The diabetes table was open, so I went there first. I was going to get tested for all of it, so it didn't matter which went first. I guessed I was currently at a low risk for diabetes even though my dad has diabetes, and after answering a series of questions, the student pharmacist confirmed my guess. After signing the consent form, my finger was pricked, and test confirmed it even more. Unfortunately I left the info sheet that my result was written on, so I no longer know the specific number.

Next was the Cholesterol test. Consent and finger number two was pricked. I was told that this test would require a bit more blood than the diabetes test... and then my finger stopped cooperating! Barely any blood came out, she tried to massage some blood out and it didn't help. I was then asked to stand up and that didn't work. So it was time to band-aid it up and prick finger number three with a bigger needle. It worked and my finger bled.

While we waited for the machine to spit out the results, the student pharmacist took my blood pressure. 131/80 came out. Right in the middle of the pre-hypertension range. Good to know. The accompanying info sheet suggests taking my blood pressure every month, and I may just do that. Then came the cholesterol results... 195! That's too close to the 200 border that keeps me in the desirable range. Last year when I donated blood with the Blood Centers of the Pacific, I was informed that my blood type was O positive, and that my cholesterol was 171. Even if eating breakfast brought up my results today, it's still probably higher than it was last year, and it's higher than I want regardless.

With the tests done, I went back out into the lobby where some food (muffins, croissants, juice, coffee, and water) were served, as well as some project posters. The most interesting fact from the men's health poster was pointed out to me by the student pharmacist in charge of the project. Testicular cancer most likely occurs in males between 15 and 34. That means me! On that table was a model scrotum to feel what a tumor would feel like. I picked up some pamphlets on Alzheimer’s disease at the mental disorders project. Possibly useful since my grandfather had it, my dad might get it, and I could get it as well. And there was a fun little Myth/Fact game at the anti-bacterial project. I got four of the five questions right and got a nice little bag of swag.

Viral Pak Contents: Info Pamphlet, Tissue,

Hand Sanitizer, Tylenol, Green Tea x2

-- Senator Leland Yee on Healthcare

The second half of the event was a speech and Q&A session from Senator Leland Yee of the California Senate on the subject of healthcare. I'd say it was a pretty good speech. Opened up with saying that coming to SF feels like coming home, and why healthcare is important. And how he votes the way he believes.

To summarize, there were three main concepts he felt were important to healthcare.

1) Preventative health care will greatly reduce costs and is very important. Sometimes it would be better if people couldn't refuse some treatments because their refusal causes further problems down the line for the patient and/or society. (Ex. Someone with a mental disorder refuses to take any medication, and may end up causing some sort of harm to other people and/or ends up with worse health problems because of that decision.)

2) A connection between health professionals and patients is important. (And of course he mentioned how pharmacists are ranked as the number one trusted health professional and we should keep that up.)

3) Money is a strong force in the healthcare industry and a public option is necessary to keep things honest.

Points two and three seem to make sense. Point one makes sense in a general sense, but of course when it comes to imposing on individual rights, there is always some concern. The details are important for all points of course.

The senator ended with saying that he believes that while heathcare will pass on the national level, there will be some important things left out because of how our system works, and the issue will then return to the state's to take the issue all the way. And he added that it is important that we all speak up and have our voices heard.

Then the Q&A Session (Short form):

Q: The public option may not pass on the national level. Is it a slam dunk for California?

A: Depends on the costs.

Q: What kind of stats are there?

A: About 25% of Californians don't have health insurance.

Q: Pre-existing conditions?

A: That's a complicated cost issue. Insurance is obviously opposed to it because it will no doubt cost them money. In the Doctor's PoV they need to be able to be treated.

Q: Speaking of preventative health care and fiscal responsibility, Will we be watching the overall health of the population?

A: That is a good question that hasn't been brought up. In short, no. We're only focusing on ways to finance healthcare, and that people who are sick have access to treatment. That is a good point that should be in our agendas.

Q: Have you considered a Kaiser type of public option?

A: Kaiser has been involved, but details such as who will control that particular system (solely the non-profit, or with government oversight) and other details must be considered. There are a lot of good points to that system, but some bad as well.

-- Conclusion

I thought the event was great.  Everyone was friendly, I got a lot of useful info.  I talked to several of them about how they're liking their classes so far, and everyone was encouraging about pursuing a career in pharmacy.  One of them even gave me her email in case I ever have any questions.  All in all, it was well worth it to attend.  Who knows, perhaps I'll be helping out at an event like this one day.

Healthcare Moves Forward

What does this mean?  All I really know is that it's a step closer to being passed than where it had been, but it's not there yet.  Here is a Yahoo News article explaining more about it.  How will that bill will look when it's passed?  Who knows.  What I do know is that I know very little about what's going on with the issue.  It's something that I've only been vaguely kept aware of, and something that I should be paying closer attention to (And will start doing so).  This issue will certainly affect myself and the profession of pharmacy no matter what shape it's in at the end.