WHERE DO I SEE MYSELF IN FIVE YEARS? WELL, SIR, ACTUALLY, I HOPE TO BE HELPING AN OLD TATER FARMER.
In 1976, Greyhound was offering a bicentennial deal on its bus service. For $76, one could travel any distance in the Greyhound system for seven days. They called it the 7-day Ameripass. Thinking this plan was better than sliced bread, I bought the ticket to the magic bus to get to my grand interview at what was supposed to be the best post-graduate Doctor Of Pharmacy degree program in the Nation at the time. I remember thinking that my great Jack Kerouac imitation was supposed to be my commitment to the holy path of clinical Nirvana.
I am a lifelong non-smoker, and that year, smoking was still allowed on buses, but only in the first three rows: BFD! For 24 hours each way, I suffered at the hands of those constant puffers and the eternal white line of the Interstates that crossed the Midwest. I felt I would be justified if only I could reach that distant campus for my opportunity to bow down at the feet of the white-coated pharmacy professorial sages who held the key to the evidence-based treasure of treasures, something I could not actually name then or now. Doesn't the Old Testament forbid worshipping a graven image? So, I was a blasphemer from the start.
Somehow, I remember packing enough for an expedition to climb Everest. I recall hauling around this big suitcase for three lousy days' travel. Once on the campus, I would be shuffled around to 10 different personages (what did Revelation say about those guys sitting on thrones?), one of them apparently a member of the USP (now I know how Winston Smith felt in George Orwell's 1984, when he knowingly met a member of the Thought Police). That standard bearer asked me, "Are you religious?" Heaven knows what I must have answered. Six out of the divine ten must have asked me, "What do you see yourself doing in five years?" There seemed to be no "now," but only the immediate building of a curriculum vitae. The craziest moment was when I met an officer of the institutional pharmacy itself, and he asked me if I would be ready to help manage a Pharmacy and Central Sterile Supply (combined in one operation.) I said I was. At the time, I had not done any more as a pharmacy intern than run a cash register and repackage Motrin. Heck, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't want to work as a housekeeper in a combined pharmacy/CSS!
Professionally, emotionally, and philosophically, I was in the wrong place making that interview visit. The 24-year-old version of me was greener than a Maine spruce, and, two years later, Maine is where I would arrive at, and comfortably so.
I was really a lover of simplicity and peace, not academic pomp, and the people of Maine potato country were very much to my liking. But for a few strange occurrences, I would be living and working there today. One of my customers was a farmer who would drag himself into the store once a month or so and request "half orders" of all his prescriptions, and pay cash. Sometimes he would drop cigarette ashes on my counter during his struggle to set down his empty drug vials.. Turns out he would die during my few years there.but I hope I provided him with some friendship and guidance during his last, stubbornly lived, days on earth.
To the high priests and priestesses of pharmacy and philosophy who behaved like little Torquemadas toward me that day three decades ago in their attempt to determine whether or not I was worthy of a coveted place among them (thank the real God that I was not), I want you to know that I was accepted into a much better realm than yours. By the way, are you religious? Then, I refer you to Psalm 24, which states, "The earth is the Lord's." That means it's not yours.
I am a lifelong non-smoker, and that year, smoking was still allowed on buses, but only in the first three rows: BFD! For 24 hours each way, I suffered at the hands of those constant puffers and the eternal white line of the Interstates that crossed the Midwest. I felt I would be justified if only I could reach that distant campus for my opportunity to bow down at the feet of the white-coated pharmacy professorial sages who held the key to the evidence-based treasure of treasures, something I could not actually name then or now. Doesn't the Old Testament forbid worshipping a graven image? So, I was a blasphemer from the start.
Somehow, I remember packing enough for an expedition to climb Everest. I recall hauling around this big suitcase for three lousy days' travel. Once on the campus, I would be shuffled around to 10 different personages (what did Revelation say about those guys sitting on thrones?), one of them apparently a member of the USP (now I know how Winston Smith felt in George Orwell's 1984, when he knowingly met a member of the Thought Police). That standard bearer asked me, "Are you religious?" Heaven knows what I must have answered. Six out of the divine ten must have asked me, "What do you see yourself doing in five years?" There seemed to be no "now," but only the immediate building of a curriculum vitae. The craziest moment was when I met an officer of the institutional pharmacy itself, and he asked me if I would be ready to help manage a Pharmacy and Central Sterile Supply (combined in one operation.) I said I was. At the time, I had not done any more as a pharmacy intern than run a cash register and repackage Motrin. Heck, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't want to work as a housekeeper in a combined pharmacy/CSS!
Professionally, emotionally, and philosophically, I was in the wrong place making that interview visit. The 24-year-old version of me was greener than a Maine spruce, and, two years later, Maine is where I would arrive at, and comfortably so.
I was really a lover of simplicity and peace, not academic pomp, and the people of Maine potato country were very much to my liking. But for a few strange occurrences, I would be living and working there today. One of my customers was a farmer who would drag himself into the store once a month or so and request "half orders" of all his prescriptions, and pay cash. Sometimes he would drop cigarette ashes on my counter during his struggle to set down his empty drug vials.. Turns out he would die during my few years there.but I hope I provided him with some friendship and guidance during his last, stubbornly lived, days on earth.
To the high priests and priestesses of pharmacy and philosophy who behaved like little Torquemadas toward me that day three decades ago in their attempt to determine whether or not I was worthy of a coveted place among them (thank the real God that I was not), I want you to know that I was accepted into a much better realm than yours. By the way, are you religious? Then, I refer you to Psalm 24, which states, "The earth is the Lord's." That means it's not yours.
I recall as a pharmacy resident at a state medical school 20 yrs ago, the medical students were reminded to sign up for a planned pheasant hunt sponsored by drug companies for the new class of medical residents, and I wondered why pharmacy residents weren't involved, not that there were too many--I was the only one at my site. And, not that I was interested, as I could only imagine the decadence described in Simon Shama's Landscape and Memory for future MDs. Onn the other hand could only imagine, in comparing the other residents with the same amount of schooling (and, in conferences they always turned to me for the drug therapy questions), their eyebrows were raised as much as mine when participation in this activity was encouraged. It probably didn't take too many pheasant hunts, before they got used to the entitlement idea...
Maybe student doctors should be the first to address the issue of the freebies, but it seems that physicians in different specialties probably are more characterized for opting for perks, than across the board MDs, and perhaps, limiting use of co-sponsored truly educational seminars for CME, as well as APCE, etc. is not a beneficial thing.
What I see as a problem is access to drug information. I wonder if MDs and students have access to OVID and other databases, that li'l ol' individuals would find too expensive for single subscriptions for access to updated information. Yes, pharmacy gets all kinds of free subscriptions to journals, and topic-related magazines, but there are just a few trusted one that I rely for comprehensive information. If there is a discrepancy between who gets what freebies, reliable access to OVID, and other information sources e.g. free Lancet, J Pharmacotherapy, and JAMA, that is where I'd like to see it even out, not the free junkets and pheasant hunts.
Cathy Lane RPh (Comment this)
Too often I've encountered the same issues of 'PC in the realm of pharmacy', and have to chuckle to myself with some chagrin, about something someone 'above me' in the order of things held 'sacred' just a few years before, (and for my differing opinion or questioning opinion was chastised) which turns out to be interpreted quite differently from the propaganda with time.
I've experienced working with just a few great pharmacy managerial-type directors in my time, and looking back on what made it such an enjoyable experience was their egalitarianism, humble enough to seek my opinion, and work with me as another pharmacist colleague to be respected for bringing my experience, and thus expertise on what I had observed. Other pharmacists found them a joy to work with as well.
On the other hand, conjoining ethics with attitude might have a place in the discussion, (admittedly a little tangentially) because if one considers an 'ethical' person is one who follows the golden rule, and in the end it cannot be said with some certainty that the others are treated much as one would personally wish to be treated, there may be a need to consider how to best accomplish this. An attitude adjustment may be required. Or, something. On the other hand, it may be hard to argue about following some ethical guidelines, if one doesn't truly understand how doing the right thing works. So, there may be differences of opinion on this. (Like sometimes when I attempt to point out irrationality to my teen-agers.)
I find that the folks I work with in which I think there is some deficiency in the ethics department seem to be most dissimilar to my own upbringing--or life experiences. (Comment this)