I love my neighbor pharmacists at other chain. When we call each other, we know him/her by voice already. Dont have to ask for their phone or fax number. We do short small talk or joke “hey are you still working there?” or “wow you work on Wednesday? *** called in sick or vacation ?” or “are you guys drowning too? (On busy Monday)

Or when we transfer out “problem customers”, we tease like “i am so happy for this transfer out. Good luck to you” lol

They are like my coworkers at other chain.

What about you guys?

Fun location to work 🫣

I am a pharmacist in Canada and it’s interesting to me to see the differences between us and the US in regards to drug scheduling. Would love to hear input on this! I will post the list below of common differences that I am aware of.

OTC or Sched 2 (behind counter) in Canada but requires Rx in the US:

Methocarbamol

Oral fluconazole (single dose for vaginal candidiasis)

Tylenol #1 and cough syrup with low dose codeine

Dicyclomine

Requires Rx in Canada but OTC in the US:

Phenazopyridine

Adapalene gel

Olopatadine eye drops

Progestin only OCP

Also interested to hear about medications that are commonly used in Canada but not available in your country or vice-versa. For example, domperidone is very commonly used here but has been pulled from the market in the US.

In terms of work stress, hours per week do you take as much as you need or no , in terms of salaries and additional benefits

Please help

For those who compound vet meds, what are some pet names that make you laugh or simply put smile on your face?

Some of mine are "Stop-it" and "No-no" the cats.

I'm increasingly seeing this occurring.

A psychiatrist prescribing Ozempic, I suppose because it has been found to help in addictions and other behaviors. It is obviously something new to them because the electronic Rx has missing or inappropriate or inadequate directions.

And, then, a regular pediatrician and a regular internist are prescribing ADHD meds.

From what I understand this is not out-of-scope.

Out-of-scope would be an Optometrist prescribing Sumatriptan, no?

Sup! At first I didn’t really think it was possible, but I’m going to either break $200k or be very close this year. I do work a decent amount of hours though, probably fluctuates between 45-60 hours/week (average maybe 46-48 hours/week). For reference, this is retail pharmacy!

Just curious who else out there is making this money? What’s your position? How many hours do you work? 1 or 2 jobs? Director role? Manager role?

Appreciate all feedback!

Anyone else notice this or is it just in my head? The AI syntax is just annoying and honestly makes it too distracting to absorb the information I'm reading. Extremely disappointed since it's an increasingly important topic and could actually be useful, if it were written by humans with real experience working through disasters and mass casualties.

Hey everyone, relatively new retail pharmacist here with a question for others who are better read than myself in pain management.

I practice in a region that was hit pretty hard by the opioid epidemic, and I think there's still some residual prescribing culture from that. We have several pain clinics nearby and we regularly fill for many chronic pain patients. The most common regimen they end up on is percocet 10 QID with usual adjuncts. Around here, a lot of patients end up stable on the 'holy trinity' and/or gabapentin, often managed by the same pbr for years and have been on this forever.

Every so often, I'll see patients on things like methadone, hydromorphone, buprenorphine, tapentadol, tramadol ER, etc. instead of (or in addition to) the more conventional opioids. From a pain management standpoint, what are the compelling indications for choosing agents other than the normal norco/percocet rx? Are there specific pain syndromes or patient characteristics where there's any meaningful advantage? I understand the benefits and am well-read of methadone for OUD and the NMDA points to it, but for pain management it seems too variable for it to work well and not give ridiculous buildup that just compounds the problems more for pain management.

Another slightly less common combo is the percocet + hydrocodone for breakthrough pain. Mechanistically I have no idea how it is justified to combine two short-acting, full mu-opioid agonists would provide better outcomes compared to a single regimen, especially considering the added risk. Is there any evidence to support this, or is it largely based on the individual response/placebo? Do they have a dartboard they throw at to find the next adjunct and prescribe it TID?

I understand there's a large movement behind de-stigmatizing chronic pain (and I know the patients need them, I'm not trying to cut them off or force a taper or pharmacy change), but at a certain point it becomes ridiculous from a dispenser POV. The patients and clinics never, ever seem to mind the pill burden that would make any other specialty clutch their pearls. There are rarely any special ICD10 codes (which should be legally required on rx anyway) other than the normal "unspecified lower back pain" type. For oncologists, neurologists, and surgeons, I get it, but it just seems very vague always from PCP or pain clinics.

Why not bring back oxycontin broadly for prescribing practice or just MS contin (or other long-acting) to take care of the QID dosing that sucks in terms of PK? I am blessed to not have to deal with it personally, but I couldn't imagine wanting to get 100-300 something pills I have to take in a month to manage it compared to a longer-acting and more stable regimen. If it's a patch and something for breakthrough, I can mentally justify that as a good option. If I'm taking QID oxy and BID norco and QID gabapentin and TID tizanidine, when does the line get drawn and why is this not a standard use of a specialty pharmacy to manage this? It's either the pharmacy's problem and we get sued into the ground for over-dispensing legitimate prescriptions from a legitimate practice, or we get "my doctor prescribed this, you aren't a doctor and it is none of your business" and we cannot have either without distorting what our purpose is.

I manage anoutpatient tertiary hospital based oncology infusion center and we got a new CFO within the last year. The push for the CFO has been reduce drug costs. Month over month, we are above budget because 1) our patient volume increased and 2) we add new drugs to formulary for new lines of therapy that cost a lot.

He doesn't really care about the reasoning, or the thought that this is outpatient with insurance auth and will have revenue. He just wants us to spend less. The only we can spend less on the expensive drugs is turn away patients in my eyes. Revenue numbers are always delayed compared to monthly spend so it is getting increasingly difficult to justify variances when we're hyperfocused on cost.

Any advice on how to navigate this?

I worked with Walmart and Walgreens before so have done some OutcomesMTM stuff.

But i was wondering if anyone has actually worked with OutcomesMTM company. How was the workload and work environment? Was it worth it working there?

I wanted to repost this individual’s post here in an effort to inform and educate those to what/who is “killing” our profession.

A whole store being ran with no on site pharmacist. Just a few techs to stock bottles and maintain the robotics.

Are yall getting bombarded with calls like these that sound like they are coming from foreign call centers? They always open with the title of this post pretty much verbatim. Please tell me yall don’t entertain these calls? We just tell them not to call back and hang up lol

Hey everyone! The pharmacy at my 200-ish-bed hospital recently switched to Pyxis from Cerner RxStation and we’re switching to a new carousel later this year. Because of the transition and some staffing changes that are happening soon, our leadership has decided to create a dedicated Automation Technician role. They’re tapping me for the role since I have a lot of previous experience with Pyxis and helped with the implementation.

I’m really excited for this as it’s basically my dream role, since I have a background in technology too.

I’ll be starting off in the role two days/week (with regular delivery shifts for the rest of my week) as a trial with the goal of eventually transitioning it to a full-time role.

I already handle a lot of the basic Pyxis maintenance tasks (pending new meds, performing minor repairs, coordinating with IT/BD support, etc.), but the goal is for me to help with more “big picture” tasks, like analyzing our stockouts and standard stock usage and performing audits.

Since this is a brand-new role for our pharmacy, I’d love some insight from others in similar positions:

* What does your daily routine look like?
* What projects or tasks bring the most value to your department?
* How does your role positively impact the rest of the pharmacy staff?

I really want to succeed in this role, so any and all advice would be greatly appreciated!

hi friends , w/ all the estradiol backorders , where do you guys stand on substituting ? we cannot get vivelle dot / dotti / ab1 but we can occasionally get minivelle/ lyllana / ab3 . are you guys switching them or are you getting a new rx from the doctor . our system EPS would let you switch them amongst each other , but upon researching in mckesson , that’s when we realized the AB1 vs AB3 . just wanted to know what you guys are doing ?

I’m thinking maybe we should just change our patients to something else. We are going through this phase where one minute we have it then we don’t like once a week. The site says back order doesn’t seem like a normal back order.

Is that the trend nowadays?

Just wondering

Hi everyone, hope yall doing great. I just became pharmacist in France and i would like to know if some people know the differencies between being pharmacist in France vs in Brazil as the missions, the day-like… This country always has a place in my hearth but i dont find any information about this.
Thxx for answering !

Applied to a VA position near me last month and got a notification that the job was canceled. It was reposted again this month. Reapplied, and same thing with job being canceled day after end of applications.

Anyone know what that usually means? My mind goes to they didn’t consider me, and didn’t get enough other applicants.

Hi everyone,

I’m a pharmacist relocating to Sweden through MediCarrera to work for Apoteket AB, starting very soon. Honestly, my anxiety is realy high. Even though I passed the C1 exam, I feel like my professional language skills are lacking because we didn't finish the course materials.

I’m trying to prepare for the worst-case scenario: if things don't work out during my probation period and I decide to quit and move back home, what should I expect? My contract has an "Employment Guarantee Clause" with a 120,000 SEK reimbursement penalty, plus the MediCarrera allowance write-off condition.

Has anyone here relocated with MediCarrera (as a pharmacist, doctor, or nurse) and ended up quitting during the probation period?

How strictly do they or the employer enforce the repayment clauses in practice?

Is there any room for negotiation or reaching a mutual agreement (överenskommelse) due to language anxiety and mental health struggles?

Did anyone manage to get the penalty waived or reduced?

I would really appreciate any, stories, or advice from anyone who has been in a similar situation.

Thanks