can someone explain to me why it takes 15-30 minutes to print a label with my name on it with the same directions on the box, then select the item from the shelf and stick it to the box?

what else do they do? i doubt theres.any compounding going on any more. i never get any directions. theyre on the sticker and beneath the sticker should i peel the sticker off. it seems the spend four years at uni to be a box storeperaon and label affixer. because there is some rule i have to have my name on the instruction. the dilligent ones might say dont take on.an empty stomach even though it says so on the box. am i wrong?

They are liable for any doctor stuff ups. Any issue and the pharmacists wears it. They need to check for dosage issues, clashes with other meds etc and have a lot of reporting requirements to avoid stuff going missing or being re-purposed (like to veterinary uses when its subsidised under PBS).
Still, the computer would surely prompt about dosage now.... so yeah I wonder if its a lot easier now

Mavis and her husband Donald got their 37 prescriptions to the counter just before you did.

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Mark _australia said..
They are liable for any doctor stuff ups. Any issue and the pharmacists wears it. They need to check for dosage issues, clashes with other meds etc and have a lot of reporting requirements to avoid stuff going missing or being re-purposed (like to veterinary uses when its subsidised under PBS).
Still, the computer would surely prompt about dosage now.... so yeah I wonder if its a lot easier now

That's a good point about the liability. There was a case in the media recently where a pharmacist dispensed exactly what the doctor had prescribed, yet was held liable for it and I think lost their license and possibly jail time. I will see if I can find the article, but it surprised me that they had such a responsibility.

edit: This is the case I was thinking of but it seems they got a finding of misconduct rather than not being able to practice or any jail time:

www.qt.com.au/news/pharmacist-guilty-of-misconduct-over-death/4181861/

The dispensing procedure has about 30 steps before a scheduled medication can be handed over. It's about getting it right, staying legal, and protecting you. Chemists/pharmacies are also a business, so they don't have luxurious staff numbers to accomodate customers instantly. Not being judgemental, just realistic.

www.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/dont-think-ive-seen-it-worse-pharmacy-graduates-lowest-paid-in-australia-with-starting-salary-of-49600/news-story/c42ea59397d64dcfe8efceba2e36be68

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Gazuki said..
www.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/dont-think-ive-seen-it-worse-pharmacy-graduates-lowest-paid-in-australia-with-starting-salary-of-49600/news-story/c42ea59397d64dcfe8efceba2e36be68

Its interesting in the way this works. Salaries for pharmacists are at an all time low. Yet they appears on some of the skilled immigration visa lists.... Do people up high not see the effect this has? Salaries fall, cheaper people are imported, and then LESS students study it at Uni... leading to less supply of pharmacists.

I can't work out why there is no recognition that allowing these careers to be on skilled immigration lists leads to less local graduates.

Instead, we get a supposed shortage, more immigration and less available jobs. In this case, if pharmacists are paid so little, the market should be left to sort it out locally. If there are less students studying it, it will drive up their starting salary. When there is a salary level which graduates see as enticing, they study to be pharmacists.

Any reason to why they stand up one or two levels higher than anyone else as they take pills from
a big bottle and put them in smaller bottles?

Maybe they need to know how they can make bombs to blow the doors of space ships to slow them down.

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beerdead said..
The dispensing procedure has about 30 steps before a scheduled medication can be handed over. It's about getting it right, staying legal, and protecting you. Chemists/pharmacies are also a business, so they don't have luxurious staff numbers to accomodate customers instantly. Not being judgemental, just realistic.

so they search some databases about my current subscriptions and see if im on conflicting nedicine? i guess that would be linked to the state rebate system? what did they do before online databases?

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Gazuki said..
www.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/dont-think-ive-seen-it-worse-pharmacy-graduates-lowest-paid-in-australia-with-starting-salary-of-49600/news-story/c42ea59397d64dcfe8efceba2e36be68

Chemist Warehouse has turned pharmacists into check-out chicks (or dudes)

I got the wrong prescription the other day it was for a different person with a heart condition .
lucky I checked before I left the chemist
So it's not infallible

Dunno why you'se all even bother with pharmacists.

theDoctor has pills, tablets, powders, liquids and tabs for just about anything you could want. They come in every colour of the rainbow.

Give him a PM on here and he'll get right back to you.

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actiomax said..
I got the wrong prescription the other day it was for a different person with a heart condition .
lucky I checked before I left the chemist
So it's not infallible

Yeah, I saw something similar just the other day.

I was walking past a chemist on the way to the hardware store for real men to get some extra heavy duty power tools when I heard some dude over the PA system going "Mr lofowind, .. MR LOTOFWIND.. your repeat prescriptions for your penis pills are ready, Mr lotofwind?????....".

And then some dude in big old knee length rain mac comes shuffling past me on his way out of the store mumbling "er... no wrong person.....not me no....."

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actiomax said..
I got the wrong prescription the other day it was for a different person with a heart condition .
lucky I checked before I left the chemist
So it's not infallible

Correct. It is not infallible. That's why they do the checks.

Waiting 15 minutes for a prescription that will fix you really seems like a first world problem

we are all happy to wait ten minutes for a takeaway coffee that costs nearly as much

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Razzonater said..
Waiting 15 minutes for a prescription that will fix you really seems like a first world problem

we are all happy to wait ten minutes for a takeaway coffee that costs nearly as much

spot on. and the govt pays most of the cost of the medication in this country, too...

As a kid my local pharmacist was a full blown legend Mr Mac who worked along side Sir Weary Dunlop.
His knowledge of old school, natural and homeopathic remedies was amazing, as kids we were all marched up to see Mr Mac before anyone even considered heading off to see a Doctor.
The need for a quick fix pill and a change to a more litigious society has killed off that style of pharmacist and made them simply dispensaries for the drug companies.

Not a crack at the pharmacists of today simply a comment on the way the system has headed and not necessarily for the better.

Our loss.