The Pharmacy Chick

Flying the Coop in Retail

T.A.P, I thought of you today

Filed under: Uncategorized — pharmacychick at 9:56 pm on Saturday, March 22, 2008

I had to laugh today. If you read blogs, The Angry Pharmacist www.theangrypharmacist.com wrote a blog about doing other people’s work, specifically regarding people who bring issues to HIM that really belong to the mail order pharmacy (read: competitor) from whence it came. Its rather colorful, if you know what I mean.

She approached me with a paper bag that she emptied on my counter. It contained a lancing device and a box of lancets. I knew her as the chauffeur for a family member who filled prescriptions at my store regularly. In fact, I believed that the stuff she deposited on my counter was for this family member. She didn’t know how to remove the lance from this device. It had been the lancing device for her brother and he had used the same lancet (!?!?) for years. Oh gag, I really didnt’ need to know that. He gifted it to her for some reason and she wanted to remove the old lancet and replace it with her own. She presented me the box of lancets. I flipped it over. It had a pharmacy label from Big Box Pharmacy up the street. All I said was “You got this at Big Box??”. I immediately thought of TAP’s blog. Her pregnant pause said it all. “yes”, she said.

I pulled the old lancet cartridge out, showed her how to put the new one in and sent her on her way. She was happy and I knew I had fodder for another blog post. Here’s hoping she replaces that lancet more than once per decade.

TAP, I tip my cap to you. Pharmacy Chick understands.

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2 Comments »

182

Comment by TheAngryPharmacist

March 24, 2008 @ 8:42 am

*sigh* I get that on almost a daily basis.

I hate it when people bring me loaded lancet devices. So friggin unsafe.

186

Comment by The Ole' Apothecary

March 24, 2008 @ 9:59 pm

Yo—I do a little work for all of yahs! (grin)

Not very taxing, though. Two or three times a day, my inpatient hospital pharmacy gets calls from outpatients asking about their retail prescriptions from Bigchain. Yes, I am aware of the rightfulness of sending them back for advice to the pharmacist that filled it, but it seems that many Big Box Pharmacies end up not talking to their customers on the phone, by virtue of putting them on perpetual hold. I suppose that the volume is so high that they let people hang up. They must be desperate for an answer, because it takes thought to:

a)realize that hospital pharmacies have pharmacists who can talk

b)look in the phone book for the hospital’s main phone number, or

c)look down the column of numbers for “inpatient pharmacy”

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