Friday 29 February 2008

Bear Shits In Woods Shock.

A soldier has been in a war. For some reason this took up a fair chunk of the six o'clock news last night.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7270743.stm

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Welsh,

What are your thoughts on Lord Mancroft?

In particular the following:

"Dispensing drugs is really simple. You and I call it retailing. Every week when I get my drugs, I watch them doing it and it takes 40 minutes. Over the road, Waitrose, the supermarket, is doing exactly the same thing really well, so why cannot these people do it? It is a shambles. It takes 40 minutes to get a drug which you can see sitting on the shelf. Why is that? It is because they have never been trained."

Anonymous said...

Oh and the link

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldhansrd/text/80228-0011.htm#08022878000409

Anonymous said...

Dear anonymous,

What do YOU think of Lord Mancroft? Please tell us. Or do you lack the guts to voice your opinion online so you'll just leave it to the likes of Welsh to get the stick for it?

Please share.

Anonymous said...

i've too always wonder why it takes my local pharmacy 15 plus minutes to take box of lansoprazole and bendrofuazide of the shelf 10 feet in front of me (i can even see them) stick a label on it and put it in a bag! whats the deal?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous,

What is it that you do... I'm sure I could degrade your job just as easily by not having the first fucking clue about how to do it. The problem being here that if I even tried to explain 'the deal' to you, you simply would not understand it. So, remove your head from your arse and don't comment on things you clearly don't know the first thing about. Plus, as I try to explain to many of my patients... and i'm sure thewelshpharmacist will understand where i'm coming from here, in fact, nearly any pharmacist will... you're not the only fucking patient I have and I don't sit on my arse all day waiting for you to come in so I can dispense your medication as quickly as possible so as not to inconvenience you. I have other things to do, so excuse me if I don't think that your two medications are the most important thing in the world... they are not.

Anonymous said...

With reference to Lord Mancrofts quote...
why is he picking his drugs up weekly? The only patients I know who do that are either benzoheads, schizos, addicts or liable to take the whole lot in one go and so cannot be trusted to have one months supply. He is clearly not to be trusted...

Anonymous said...

You don’t sound like you enjoy your job too much mr anonymous pharmacist man, maybe you should start considering another job? With your background you could maybe consider applying to spar or costcutter, im sure a lot of “crazy skills” you must have learnt in pharmacy college could be transferred to the small retail business??? i was only expressing my opinion on what i observe on a monthly basis. Also having discussed this particular point with a number colleagues and friends, the general consensus seems to be that of my own. Prescription says drug and dose, tablets handed out need to match to said drug and dose. How does it take a team of FOUR PEOPLE so long? (paediatric registrar)

Anonymous said...

You don’t sound like you enjoy your job too much mr anonymous pharmacist man, maybe you should start considering another job? With your background you could maybe consider applying to spar or costcutter, im sure a lot of those “crazy skills” you must have learnt in pharmacy college could be transferred to the small retail business??? i was only expressing my opinion on what i observe on a monthly basis. Also having discussed this particular point with a number colleagues and friends, the general consensus seems to be that of my own. Prescription says drug and dose, tablets handed out need to match to said drug and dose. How does it take a team of FOUR PEOPLE so long? (paediatric registrar)

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr Paediatric Registrar,

If you really want to understand why it takes so long why don't you offer to work in a pharmacy for an hour or two?

Regards,
Another anonymous

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr Paediatric Registrar.
I understand your pain. I am a pharmacist, and my training is only sufficient to allow me to take a box from a shelf, label it, and put it in a bag. For this*, I earn about 10 times your current salary, and about 5 times the salary you can expect to earn when you get your sorry ass to the top of the greasy pole you are currently climbing.
Your nights must be sleepless.
Please accept my heartfelt apologies.
*Oh - I forgot to say. I invested millions of pounds in my pharmacies, and my entire business is a big scary gamble. Something Mr Paediatric Registrar is probably to shit scared to do, and it's this enviable (?) position that so pisses off Mr Paediatric Registrar and his like.
Oh - and one other thing. There's a lot more to it than sticking labels onto boxes, but I suspect I'd be wasting my time trying to explain that to someone so clearly up his own arse as Mr Paediatric Registrar. (What is a fucking 'Paediatric Registrar' by the way?)

Anonymous said...

Ok well tell you what come into the pharmacy with a prescription for two items, say oh i dunno, erythromycin and simvastatin. A pharmacist will follow the directions on the prescription EXACTLY and then someone can push you in a week later in a wheelchair cos all the muscles in your arms and legs have atrophied due to a major drug interaction.
The reason it takes so long is because pharmacists check what a doctor has done and picks up the occasional mistakes they make, meaning impatient people like you aren't inconvenienced with a minor case of death or paralysis.
MUPPET!

Anonymous said...

Also what a suprise that a registrar can't see past the end of their own prescription pad that they don't know how to properly use

Anonymous said...

this is sparta!!!

The Welsh Pharmacist said...

Lord Mancroft?

Let's put it this way, there would be no great wailing and gnashing of teeth from this quarter if hereditary peers were first up against the wall come the revolution...

Let's face it, the lazy shit has never done a real day's work in his life.

The Welsh Pharmacist said...

For fuck's sake, I've lost track of which anonymous is which.

Anonymous said...

Hmm... comments from people who have blatantly never seen a pharmacy from the other side.

You don't get 5 minute phone calls from patients asking where their prescriptions are, in the middle of making up prescriptions, genuinely thinking that we are the doctors or having ordered their repeat prescriptions yesterday when the doctors take 48 hours to sign a piece of paper the doctors don't read.

Or they just ring to tell us we are incompetent. That's quite nice too.

Every 10 minutes a patient comes in wishing to speak to a pharmacist, generally about something they feel as important as your medicines. Takes up time really but we can't say no.

We're also contracted to do these medication review things. Paperwork galore.

Then you've got your boss/area manager breathing down your neck asking why you've not hit your targets for prescriptions this week. Probably because our patients have no PATIENCE and demand everything yesterday, and really we don't feel appreciated enough to be motivated to bring them in so even more can moan.

Just cause you can't be bothered to join our prescription collection service and have it ready to pick up from the shelf like other, sensible, people...

Plus you do tend to moan when we say it'll be 15 minutes and you ask every 5 where it is in the queue. That takes up time too.

Then there's the fact that there might be say 5 people in front of you with 20 item scripts. If you dont want to wait come in on a quiet day. Like a Sunday. Or better yet, drop it off, call in tomorrow and we'll pretty much guarantee (manufacturer allowing) that ALL of your script will be ready when we say the next day.

The other thing being, as was said before...dose, indication, interactons, suitability for the patient... You get taught how to do all this at university. Where you pay for the privillage for a pharmacy degree. Once you leave university, you have to pay to be a pharmacist and get grief off customers on a daily basis. Great.

Staring at us or muttering under your breath at our incompetence or even causing uproar among the patients does NOT make us go faster. Trust me. I am a robot, although sometimes I wish I was. I'd probably be more efficient and since I'd have no emotions I'd probably just ignore you.

Why don't you go and cause a fuss in the doctor's surgery you sat around for 2 hours in waiting patiently and quietly for your emergency appointment where the doctor gave you some paracetamol or ibuprofen, which you can BUY (it doesn't cost the earth) and a pat on the back for not feeling so well?

It takes FIVE whole years to become a pharmacist. Maybe not even a good one. But it's not easy either. Not one bit. Perhaps YOU should give it a go if it's so easy.

Anyway, what the hell has all this got to do with Prince Harry serving in Iraq, i.e. doing what he was trained to do?! The media wasn't particularly fussed when my husband had to go to Iraq to do his bit in a war he doesn't beleive in. But that's another story.

The Cornish Pharmacist

Anonymous said...

I also forgot to mention that people like Lord Mancroft are why I made the move to hospital pharmacy 2 years ago. Far more rewarding. Less stressful too.

I wish every luck to TWP on his travels abroad. It's gotta be better than Britain!

I apologise for the length of my reply. It appears I have a lot to say in defence of my career choice for some reason.

At least we're lucky that the majority of our patients still have to pay for presciptions here. Saves a lot of timewasting on dispersible aspirin!

TCP

The Welsh Pharmacist said...

TCP.

Er, I think I'm in love!

Anonymous said...

I think you will find that Lord Mancroft is a smackhead. And if it wasn't for the wonderfully expensive rehab he received in the US he would be dead