Doctor Shadows a HOSPITAL PHARMACIST: day in the life of a pharmacist 

You were great at explaining your job!!

Thank you for all your hard work!! I'm a tech who's been around many of pharmacist and the amount of effort and care you put into your patients is inspiring. Wish I could say the same about all pharmacists!! But you're definitely top notch 💊💉

You. Are. Amazing!!!💗 Best wishes

Clinical pharmacist here 🙋🏽‍♀️. Thank you for representing our profession so well! You were awesome!

Thanks for being part of this clip, you seem great 😊

👍👍👍

I second this! So many times I tell people I’m a CLS and they assume I’m a phlebotomist or they have no idea what I do

Yes! I'm going to school to be an MLS and it would be so cool!

I was going to suggest this too! Each department has unique opportunities that can be highlighted. But I have to say Clinical Microbiology is the best but I'm biased. 😜

Lab and pharmacy are right next to each other in our hospital and that is fitting because like you said, both of our careers seem to be “out of sight, out of mind”. I appreciate the job that the lab staff does on a daily basis. Vanc troughs keep our hospital going. Haha.

Absolutely agree!!! Both pharmacy and lab are often overlooked.

is that why my mom’s’ pharmacist has given her the wrong dosage multiple times and almost killed her once?

@@biancadesousa if you don’t mind me asking, what medication was it, how far apart was the dosage and how they almost killed her)

@wildflower was this in a hospital setting or retail ?

@@biancadesousa 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

@@biancadesousa Your anecdotal experience doesn’t speak for all pharmacists, not to mention you didn’t provide any context at all. At any given time there are thousands of malpractice suits ongoing involving mostly doctors. As a pharmacist myself, I sometimes catch dozens (yes, dozens!) of errors each shift that don’t make it to the patient because of my expertise and intervention. And guess what, the patient never even knows. The physicians and nurses get all the credit in healthcare. But God forbid a pharmacist makes an error, and the world comes crashing down. Nobody is perfect. Your personal experience doesn’t speak for everyone. Get a grip.

As another pharmacy student, I also appreciated this video!! ❤️❤️

Same I loved watching this video- fellow pharmacy student too!

I am glad to watch this videos as a pharmacy student from Turkey.Thank you Siobhan

I'm a tech and I do have to say I've have many conversations with fellow techs and our pharmacists about there eventually will be no need for techs as the machines will count and patient will get it delivered. Which means we lose our jobs. I wouldn't worry too much about the pharmacist side as I'm sure there's still always going to be a final check by one but it puts us techs in fear of being replaced by robots.

@@pcbusby I can definitely see that happening, like many jobs that are being now done by robots..

Couldn’t have said it better myself!!

@@ViolinMD you are the same "doctor" that was lying to the public about covid just so you kept getting a NICE NICE PAYCHECK, so i spit on you and nurses like you that only think about the $$$ and u will say " no no i am helping people" ooooooooh really. ok do this help a person with NO medical insurance and see if u still have a job being a doctor you WONT. the only time a "hospital will give out free" medical care, is when it is a natural disaster and they will ONLY do it then because they will get paid back in the "clean up" bill.

So true! Technicians are so vital❤️❤️

thank you!!!🥰🥰

A drug Overlord need it's Drug dealer yeaaa lmao

Right? Seeing the RPh in the chemo room, I was like, yiiiiiikes, where are my RPhTs?

as a pharmacist im much more worried if I technician is sick.

That, and it's really helpful for students with an interest in working in the medicine field but aren't quite sure where are what different fields do and aren't able to shadow themselves!

@@nattycat14 True! Love that

Definitely! She does such a great job highlighting the importance of the role!!

Yes please

Yes! I had baby back in May of 2021 and housekeeping came in and tidy up the room and I thanked them numerous times bc I couldn't get outta bed due to a csection. They have an important role as well as the Drs and Nurses there 🤎.

Can u please elaborate on how a retail pharmacist can be very busy too ? I am considering this career.

@@cheesobogo3199 it’s hard to explain all of it because there is a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes (insurance billing, calling md’s to request/fix prescriptions, making adherence calls to patients, calling insurance companies through 1-800 numbers and waiting on hold, giving vaccinations, etc). Most of the time this is done with 2 or 3 technicians. One technician is usually at the drive thru full time, another is up front ringing out customers, and the last one answers the phone and fills prescriptions. An average cvs/Walgreens in my area does 600 prescriptions a day and some are pushing over 1,000 per day. In a 12 hour shift you would have to check at least 50 prescriptions per hour to keep up with the 600 per day. Each prescription is checked twice (once after it is typed to make sure everything was typed correctly from the written prescription. This is also when we look for drug interactions and dosing concerns. The 2nd time we check it is to make sure the correct pills are in the bottle after it is filled.) This means you are doing 100 “checks” per hour and that does not account for time to do all of the other stuff that is required. A lot of the time pharmacists get pulled away from checking prescriptions to help in workflow (typing prescriptions, ringing out customers, filling the prescriptions, answering the phone, putting up the drug order, putting in the drug order for the next day, calling insurances or doctors, etc.) My best advice would be to work in a pharmacy before you go to school for it and if you decide to do it I would go work in the hospital. I did 8 years of retail and finally transitioned to the hospital about a year ago. The life of a pharmacist in the hospital is way better and it is not even close. I hated RETAIL so much I almost quit pharmacy to get my real estate license.

​@@cheesobogo3199 it's been a year, but imma reply in case anyone else comes across it. Honestly, I highly discourage going into retail pharmacy, especially at this stage where corporate has learned to maximized profits while minimizing labor. I used to work at a moderately busy "3 letter" pharmacy. We're also next to a pretty big university, so we fill around 500 prescriptions per day during the school year and 400 during the summer. As a pharmacist you need to verify prescriptions, making sure the techs typed it up correctly and count the correct drug. You answer phone calls from doctor's office of they decided to call in the prescription instead of electronic, you also have to talk phone calls whenever someone(doctors/nurses/patients) have a clinical questions about medications. You also have to counsel on certain prescriptions, and recommend OTC drugs, you'll get a lot of "What do you recommend for this rash I got here?" You need to call the doctor's office if there's something wrong with the prescription that can be life-threatening error to the patient, but sometimes it's a weekend and the doctor doesn't answer Monday. And now you have a angry patient that demands their meds even after explaining we can't release it for their safety. You have to leave every 10minutes to do vaccines when it's flu season (typically September-February). You're also expected to do pick-up and drive-thru if the techs can't catch up. With all of these, corporate only allow our store to have max 1 pharmacist and 1 tech (some times 2) at a time. But they still expect us to complete everything in 15minutes(from data entry to filling to verify, while having to do vaccines) or else our store KPI goes down which reflects poorly on your yearly salary increase. Not only that, the 3 letter pharmacy is notorious for buying out AND closing down other pharmacies in the same area, so instead of a town of 5,000 people going to 4 different pharmacies, all 5,000 is now forced to go to the only pharmacy that is left while not increasing staffing or pay.

@@cheesobogo3199 in retail, you're adjudicating one patient event every 5-15 seconds. Every 5-15 seconds you're verifying an order, answering the phone, wringing someone up at the register, listening to someone's symptoms and telling them which OTC med to get, figuring out an alternative to a med not covered by an insurance, making a call on whether or not a doctor is prescribing opioids appropriately or not, etc. No one but other pharmacists and techs will ever understand how busy you are. If you try to explain it to someone, they either won't believe it, or they will just chalk it up to being consistent with everyone naturally complaining about their own jobs. You are chronically understaffed, and patients will take it out on you. Not every patient, but enough to give you chronic stress both at work and when not at work. Most patients and even some doctors don't know the Federal and State pharmacy laws, so you will be in constant conflict with people that want you to do something for their convenience, but which will put your license to practice at risk, and also which could put you in a position to be civilly liable, i.e. lose all the money you made working as a pharmacist. I would consider a career with a higher quality of life. Learn how to code with assistance by AI and work for Microsoft. Be an engineer at Lockeed Martin. Something with a better quality of life.

Good luck!

Negative career outlook..

@@jupitersspell not really. Some people just get unmotivated. Especially when you see all the work you have to do to get there, and it’s hard to see when and how the good part will come. And they said it’s their dream job so I think they will do great!

@@kaitlin6184 No, I mean the career has negative outlook. It's projected at -3% for 2019-2029, meaning there are ZERO new jobs and only terminations. The only career with that low of outlook is interior design. We simply don't need more pharmacist, its worse than doing art school.

@@jupitersspell Ohhh…dang sorry about that then. I just wasn’t able to get what you where trying to say without that bit of context. Thank you for sharing the facts! Have a great day!

Hi Tasha!! So glad to hear you liked how the video turned out!! Thank you so much for providing your insights - it was lovely to meet you! Also love your RU-vid channel!! 🙌

Absolutely! Thank you for sharing the various aspects of hospital pharmacy. Your presentations bring more awareness to the public in a creative way. Thank you for inviting us to share our profession with you! Best of luck! Milica

@@milipod Hi Milica! Great to see you here - was such a pleasure meeting you! Thanks for jumping in without hesitation. You are a natural!

I start pharm school next year, I wanted to ask what does nuclear pharmacist do? And does it require additional schooling after?

Great suggestion - thanks!! I like that idea

Agreed. Would like to see a day in a pathologist's life too.

Seconding this!

I found that when I went from retail to inpatient, it’s actually really different. There’s a lot that I do at my hospital that this didn’t show, like sterile compounding for IVs, refilling med stations, delivering meds, etc. I think that’s because my hospital has different technology and I’m also in the US so that changes some things. But I was definitely surprised when I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing when I went from retail to inpatient.

I’ve had this comment from our elderly patients quite a bit “just count the (expletive) pills, that’s all you have to do, what’s taking so long”. People don’t understand how much goes into that one medication, tech typing rx, rph reviewing the script, most time consumingly- having to deal with thoseDREADED INSURANCE REJECTIONS, and finally rph checking the med against the script. I will mention to be careful Rachel because in my state, there’s a really fine line in helping the patient vs counseling the patient which is quote “beyond the techs duties”. They are real strict about pharmacist being the only to counsel in my state.

@@matthewthompson4611 they’re strict in my state as well about it. I’m not counseling directly. I’m relaying what the pharmacist says but I will talk to my pharmacist about it before I do if I notice something.

@@dianafox2018 I’m from the US as well and have had co-workers go to hospital settings and that’s exactly what they do as well. It’s funny how it’s all called pharmacy but there’s so much to it.

Being able to make ivs at my hospital makes me feel like I’m actually truly helping people as opposed to my retail pharmacy job. I work overnight with one pharmacist, it’s just us for a 125 bed hospital that due to COVID recently is pretty much at full capacity all the time now.

@@matthewthompson4611 I agree that making ivs makes it feel like I’m helping. I used to be an overnight pharmacy tech at a children’s hospital and it was just me and the pharmacist. I actually really enjoyed being on nights but man it’s hard on your body after awhile and takes a toll on your social life for sure. I hope things calm down for you guys soon!

@@dianafox2018 the hardest part for me is when we fight so hard making so many drips for our patients and then God has another plan for those patients. I imagine it would have been even harder at a pediatric hospital. 😢 I’ve been working nights for about 7 years now. Used to be 7on,7off 10 hour shifts. By that 6th day you’d about had it with everybody. Now we work a 5,2,2,5. Makes it a little more manageable. 5 days are not quite as bad. Are you still working yourself?

@@matthewthompson4611 Yes, it's really emotionally hard to work with pediatric and neonatal patients. But when you see a baby that has been in the NICU for over a year finally get to go home, that makes it worth it. It's really hard when it doesn't end up that way. The Pediatric ICU, though, is really, really rough. I've been in research for a few months but I'm getting ready to transfer back to the women's and children's hospital that I worked nights at. We do 7 on 7 off on nights and I actually really liked it. So much so that I'm going to be doing that on days now.

@@dianafox2018 I have a medically fragile kid, so I appreciate your work at the children's hospital!

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-s0JTG6GBea0.html

I’m a pharmacy student: thanks for fighting the crowd in the community!! You’re equally as important as clinical pharmacist, never forget that!