Not My Best Day

So, as I stated in my last post, I love giving flu shots (or any immunization for that matter). However, on Thursday I definitely had THE worst experience of my career. I had an eleven-year-old try to bite me! I have never seen a child so out of control. At one point he was hissing at me!  I actually have shoe scuff marks on the wall of my immunization room that are about four feet off the ground. Now this child is not mentally challenged. He is being treated for ADD but this was something else all together. I refused to help restrain him so his mom and sister did while I took a dive between them and got him in the thigh. It really bothered me! Not because he was being forced to get this shot, because children often have to be forced to get what is best for them. It bothered me because now he will never trust me or another pharmacist again. His mother had to be so "forceful" that I'm sure he had some bruises the next day. That's all I need is for his school teacher to ask how he got those bruises and have him tell her "the pharmacist did this to me". We just aren't trained in how to handle these situations. I personally don't have children and have very little patients for this kind of thing but everyone said I handled it really well. The funniest part was that while this was going on in the shot room there was a lobby full of other people waiting to get their flu shot. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't fun. I normally would have given him the Flumist but we have been unable to get any this year. I offered to call other pharmacies to see if anyone else had it but Mom was insistent that I give the vaccine because everyone in the family had come to me and was impressed with how "good" I was. That's nice and I appreciate the loyalty but this was really not pleasant for anyone involved. I have my opinion about why the child acted this way but I will keep that to myself. My whole staff is laughing about it now (as am I) but I really could have done without that experience. It was actually a two day process because he came in on Wednesday and acted this way so Mom took him home. They were back and waiting on me when I got to work the next afternoon. What a way to start a shift!

It's Back!

  Yes, it's back. Flu shot season is upon us. I don't know about the rest of you but I love giving flu shots. I don't know what it is that I love so much but I do. Maybe it's the one-on-one contact with patients. Maybe it's because most of the people receiving them actually want your service (as opposed to that MAJOR inconvenience of our counseling them on a med they've been taking for 20 years). Or maybe it's the satisfaction of knowing that I am helping my community stay healthy thru the flu season. Or maybe I'm just a masochist and like sticking people with a needle, who knows. What ever the reason I love it. I don't love trying to fit it into my work-flow, but I have an awesome staff that makes it run like clockwork so even that isn't too bad. I don't love my company's total, complete concentration on the subject by setting goals and running contests. That kind of thing cheapens the service and takes the professionalism out of it, but what can you do. A corporation is always going to focus on quantity rather than quality. It's up to us as the professionals to put that kind of thing into perspective and coach our staff on proper procedure and not cutting corners just to meet goals or win contests. And, oh yeah, we still have prescriptions to fill so we can't put flu-shot "blinders" on and forget everything else. But taking all of that into consideration, I still love the simple act of sitting down with a patient, talking to them about what they are going to receive then administering the vaccine.

"Whether I like it or not"

   Not too long ago I had two ladies in my store. They were elderly mother and adult daughter.  Earlier in the day the daughter had called asking for advise. Her mother had accidentally inhaled one of her oral meds and it had taken quite some doing to get it out of her trachea. She had a persistent cough and the daughter wanted to know what to do. Of course, I advised going to the emergency department as it was a weekend and her MD could not be reached. So she went to the E.R. and was then in my pharmacy to get some prescriptions filled. While I was filling them I over heard them talking. The daughter said," You know Mom, my insurance company wants me to use mail-order but I just don't want to. I want a pharmacist that I can reach anytime and that I can talk to face-to-face. I come to this pharmacy because that pharmacist filling your medication will tell me what I need to hear whether I like it or not."  I think that was the single most flattering comment I had ever had made about me. This lady trusted me enough to pay higher copays to use a local pharmacy and she trusted me enough to tell her what she needed to hear not just what she wanted to hear. So many times we deal with people who just want us to agree with them; they don't really want our advise. It's good to know that there are people who respect our opinions and advise. It is very humbling to know that there are people making decisions about their healthcare needs based on the experiences and encounters they have had with me personally. That is why I love this job and that is why I go back day after day and put up with the people who don't respect me. Sometimes it feels like no one cares what you have to say and no one respects you as a person let alone a pharmacist, but every now and then God will bring someone your way to let you know that you are valued and respected and that you are impacting people's lives in a positive way. Watch for these opportunities and hold them dear in your heart.

I Am Amazed!

  It amazes me that in this day and age an employer can have policies in place that deprive their employees of basic rights like freedom of speech. I'm not talking about when they are at work, representing the employer. I'm talking about policies that make it a violation to say anything negative about the company or any of its representatives when the employee is NOT on the clock. That's what my employer does. They make it a violation to speak out against any entity of the company on public forums such as Facebook or blogs like this one. Just how is that legal? If what I'm doing is not illegal then how can my job be jeopardized by what I do outside of work? The policy is mute on the point of positive statements, by the way. It's only negative that they want to control. Well, I'm here to tell you that my opinion is MY opinion and does not represent the opinion of any person or entity of my employer. I have a right to freedom of speech in any form. I think there would be a civil suite waiting for them if they tried to deny me the  rights that are given to me by the government of this country. This is not a dictatorship! These so called "media policies" were put in place to protect the company from liable by limiting the statements to the media to those who are better equipped to handle "touchy" subjects, but somehow the policies have morphed into something else entirely. All I can tell my readers is to watch what you post. Most of these policies contain clauses that say if you list your employer, by name, as your employer on your profile (such as Facebook) or have any image that represents your employer (such as pictures taken at work) then you are, in fact, representing that employer with everything that appears on your post. So, I for one, have removed all such images and references from my Facebook page. I refuse to not mention my employer on my blog simply because I post this anonymously and would just like to see them trace this back to me. Plausible deniability anyone?