Fancy taking a multiple-choice personality test?

I find it quite scary to also be a D.
25 years in to what should be a great profession and every pharmacist I know has either done something else (even if it's only to climb the slippery pole into senior management and in the same instant forget how to be a pharmacist), has sold up and become something else or just wishes they were something else.
Yesterday we had 3 staff off, dispensed just over 1,100 items, performed 5 quality MURs all in under 10 hours all with one technician and two assistants! Then when I got home I found a reminder from the GPhC that I need to pay up. Not in 30 days time but 4 months before the deadline! My wife simply asked "Whiskey or Vodka?"........
The NMS (or NUMBS as we call it locally) is a great service in theory yet in my branch we will have to perform in excess of 60 numbs to get our 80% payment. This is on top of 15,000 items per month and 400 MURs plus everything else I have to do in a 50 hour week. This will become a target for my employer as did the "mandatory" 400 MURs. Performance management will be hinted at for those not completing the reviews as it has been with MURs. As for GPs helping out by referring, forget it, my lot won't even embrace EPS as there is nothing in for them. The PCT is powerless to enforce it. They're laughing all the way as they finish at 3pm on a Bank Holiday and drive away in that brand new Porsche 911 paid for by us!
Anyway got to go. It's Saturday morning and I have bundle of CPD to reflect on, complete and then record before I can actually enjoy my weekend.
The truly sad thing is that as much as I hate it, I love it equally......................

Great post Greg, thanks for sharing that insight.

I think that most pharmacists will feel the same way as you - they love the job that they do but feel that there are too many obstacles in the way.

From discussions I've had with the sector, there's a growing feeling that the situation has come to a head and community pharmacy needs to develop a new model for the way that it practices - one that allows pharmacists and their teams to do the job they love in the way that they want without the levels of stress and hassle that currently exist.

At October's Pharmacy Show, C+D is running a two-day conference (see C+D Conference tab at the top for details). We are running a Dragons Den-style debate where four pharmacy groups will propose new models of how pharmacists can practice. The audience will get to question them and vote on their preferred model.

Hopefully this should be the start of a big conversation where grassroots pharmacists have a say in their future.

Regards

Gary Paragpuri
Editor, C+D

hi,
i am a pre-reg , started just this month, and am already feeling the heat.. (like you are saying)
scary O_O

aisha adnan (pre-reg)
lloyds pharmacy
fareham,
hampshire