They call me a Pharmacist

I was pondering over how I would say this. How I would start this entry and slowly make my way through my thoughts until I got my point across.
But you know what? I didn't find a better way than to just say it, so I will.

We, the pharmacists of this world, are the only ones capable of providing you all with medicine!! Literally!
You may trust your physician more than us, heck, your physician may mock us all the hell he wants, but at the end of the day he prescribes to you the medication that WE - graduates of schools of pharmacy - discovered, researched, developed, slaved over, clinically trialled, produced, quality controlled, and sold. And that's just a tiny part of it!! There is so much more that goes behind all this, that pharmacists do, but for some reason it's all conveniently forgotten. With all do respect to all the physicians, they wouldn't know the difference between Naphthenes and Naphthalene if their lives depended on it. And I'm not saying that they should!! They know much more in several other fields related to their work as physicians, and things that don't concern us as pharmacists. Not to mention that they work hand in hand with us in bringing about the introduction of a new drug as they are right there when the drug is still in clinical trials. (I'm diverting from the topic, let me get back to my point.)

My point is, when the pharmacist who is the one that creates all the medicine in this world, and the one who provided cures for so many diseases today, and the same one who God willingly may have the cure for late stage cancer one day, is degraded to become a human robot routinely working in a job where he is under appreciated, under paid, and under challenged, well .. doesn't that sort of KILL any creativity or any hope of creating anything that may be worth any use to this world?!
Again, with all do respect to all the pharmacists who work in pharmacies in Egypt -including myself- (and I say Egypt because in developed countries like the U.S and Germany, pharmacists have a real job which doesn't revolve around helping you choose a lip gloss that goes with the color of the nail polish you just chose. They have a real job that is critical and requires specific study and cannot be delegated to anyone else but a pharmacist. ), lets get real. You could be doing this job with 5% of what you studied in college. There are only basics that you need to know to work in a pharmacy, and the biggest proof of that is all the physicians, dentists, lawyers, etc who wear a lab coat and carry entire shifts alone in a pharmacy.

I know, if I don't like it I should just leave.
And you know what? I will!
But it saddens me greatly to see all this potential go to waste.
Hidden under piles and piles of frustration, dis-gratitude, and giving in to "the bitter reality".
A bitter reality that has made an entire society view us as salesmen, and make jokes about it on our expense.

And the saddest part is, I can't blame them. Because I've seen how all of them are true.

Here comes the bride, all dressed in .. a white labcoat.

You know what's adorable?
Mothers.

But, not all of them.

Not all mothers are adorable, no.
Some mothers are just annoying.

Like this one.

It's a regular day at the pharmacy. A lady walks in, asks for some medications, I give her what she asks for, and she leaves.

But wait.

She turns back around, and asks me for my name.
"You're cute doctor, what's your name?
Engi.
Are you engaged?
Umm, no.
In a relationship?
Err.. uh.. no?
hahaha, ok then. *wink* "

And she's gone.

Or is she?

7 minutes later, the phone in the pharmacy rings.
My boss picks up, someone is asking for me.
I pick up the phone and .. well, take a wild guess who is on the other line?

" Hey Dr. Engi, I'm the lady who was just speaking with you a few minutes ago.
Yes, hey. Can I help you?
Here, write my number down, and give me a missed call after work.
I'm sorry, what?
Well I don't want to chat and take you away from your work, wouldn't want you to get into any trouble.
*how thoughtful*
So when you're off work, just give me that missed and I will call you right back.
Is everything ok?
Oh yes yes, everything is great! Good news, good news."

Of course I never did call her back. And apparently I didn't need to, because the next day her son came to the pharmacy himself. But thank God it was my day off.
My boss is actually the one who told me. He said a young man came and asked about me (me whom he has never even seen!) and left his "credentials" and phone number. (wtf?!)

I felt like a TV set at that moment.
Bride window shopping.
I don't know about you, but I didn't find it flattering at all.
I found it insulting. Here I am slaving away,unappreciated, in this place, when some lady takes a look at me and thinks "well she looks like she's got nothing better to do. I'll have my little boy come and check her out himself. I wonder if she comes in lilac!! Oh how lovely!" -_-
But you know what? I'm pretty sure many pharmacies have participated in the marriage of plenty.
Come to think of it, I think that may actually be one of their greatest uses in Egypt.

Wow, this pharmacy business never fails to surprise me.
There is so much more to it than meets the eye.

And that freaks me out, sometimes.

Give me my medicine!!

As I mentioned before, in a perfect world, in a perfect pharmacy, everything your heart desires can be found in surplus amounts. Things you’ve heard about before, things you never knew existed, and things that never have.

There is no such thing as “we will have that next week” or “ the company has stopped producing that” or “are you sure that’s how its spelt?”

In a perfect world, whatever you want, you get.

Which brings me to my point.

There is a lot of medication in our world. When a new medication is produced, it's under a patency. A lot of medication is overpriced either because a lot of money was spent on research and development, clinical trials and finally producing it, or because pharmaceutical companies want to rip you off.  Whichever the reason, it makes it very hard to acquire certain medication, that’s why some nice people decided to recreate the same medicine – the brand drug -  using the same active ingredient, but give it a different name and sell it for a much lower price. But that can only happen after the patency expires.That, my friends, is called a generic drug, which is the alternative of the original brand.

For some reason, many people do not trust the generic drug. They only trust the medication their physician has prescribed them and scribbled down on a piece of paper (without giving a hoot if it still exists or not, that’s not his job. That’s a pharmacist’s job. What’s that? Are you wondering what all those medical reps are doing then? Oh I don’t know. I guess the doctor is too busy to pay attention to EVERYTHING they tell him. Come ooon, cut the guy some slack.) People like that are quite difficult, and very hard to please. No matter how hard you try to explain that the medicine on the prescription is not available on the market and that they may take another one with the exact same substituent in the exact same concentration and get better, they will not have it. Just hearing the word generic makes them freak out!! What generic!? Oh Dear God, why?! Why why why!! This can’t be happening to them! Oh no!! You give them THAT medication, right this minute! Make it appear out of thin air or have it fly in from the US!! For all they care, you can send for it from Mars, but they want that medication. Ironically, they can’t even read the prescription so you could have acted like the generic was the drug prescribed, but there you go again with all your Pharmacist morals. 

Well, aren’t you pathetic.

That's a P .. for Poy.

You know that joke that says "Be nice to pharmacists, we can kill you with one mistake?"
No?? hahaha, that's a shame.

Anyways.
In case you haven't noticed, medicine has funny names.
Pharmaceutical companies just can't give medication a normal name. It has to sound like some sort of a skin infection, like weird Latin taxonomy. But even simple names that have grown on all of us like Abimol and Flagyl still pose a difficulty in pronunciation for many people.
Imagine the daily dilemma that faces pharmacists in trying to differentiate between a P and a B, especially over the phone!!

Forget the P and the B.

Just trying to get someone to pronounce the name of a medicine - P and B less - correctly is almost a miracle. It's like " Hey! Aren't you the pharmacist? You figure it out!" .. which is sort of the same approach all those snobby doctors use when writing prescriptions. They find it amusing to have us suffer as we squint and glare and hyperventilate trying to figure out what in the world is written.
Like we don't suffer enough.

The most fascinating part about all this, is how the patients try to convince us - no matter how many graves we swear on - that the medicine they just asked for, with that specific pronunciation, exists! If you don't know it, then it's you - the pharmacist's - fault. Yes. Uhuh. Yep. Without a shadow of a doubt. It is your fault and you are the one mistaken.

Aren't you always wrong?

God.
This profession is never paying off.

Chill, I'm a doctor.

It's safe to say that when it comes to your physician, there is no room for you to be embarrassed about anything. That should apply to your pharmacist as well, since they are the one who provide you with the medication your physician has subscribed.
But, from what I've seen, that's not the case.

For some reason people find the silliest things to be embarrassed about.
They walk into the pharmacy acting like they just stole something, like they don't want anyone to know they've been here.
For starters, anything that is to be used by a lady must be placed in a black bag. It's ridiculous.
It's so ridiculous, that it's gotten to the point that even hair dye embarrasses some people!
And don't get me started with the blue pill *rolls eyes*.

I think it's because at some point along the way people have completely forgotten the fact that we are pharmacists, and hence associated with the whole health care system thingamabob.
They address us by "doctor" but it just slips their mind what that really means.

I guess that happens when you sell too much conditioner and toothpaste.
Can't really blame them.
I sort of forget too, sometimes!

Would you like a band-aid with that?

One of the greatest advantages of working in a pharmacy, is the excitement you get out of bargaining.

"That's 74 LE, Sir.
How about 70 LE?
No, Sir. 74 LE. We don't do discounts.
Thing is, I don't like change. Why don't you just make it 70?
74 LE. "

"So, how much of a discount are you gonna make for me doctor? 
We don't give discounts.
Oh come on! I just paid 240 LE. Help me out over here.
I'm sorry, pharmacy policy. Matter of fact, The Syndicate of Pharmacists mandates us to never make discounts.
But everyone else gives discounts.
Well, they're not supposed to."

"Hey, I'd like the diet sugar for 4.60 LE but can I have it for 4.50 LE ? And I'll trade you one of those band-aids you give for .10 change.
*silence*
Hello?"

I really don't get it. Pharmacies aren't supposed to give discounts, but some pharmacies give up part of their own profit just for the sake of getting more customers. It's ridiculous. It's not like we need more reasons for a lower salary. Isn't it enough that we sell medicine by the "strip" and sometimes by the "tablet"?!

Besides, why does everyone expect to get a discount at a pharmacy? In which part of the world is that a regular procedure?
When you walk into a McDonald's, do you ask for a discount?
Why do you expect to get one at a pharmacy?
Why won't you respect the fact that medicine is priced by the Ministry of Health and just save yourself and the pharmacist the time, energy, and embarrassment of bargaining?

Think of that the next time you beg the pharmacist to give you a discount for being "such a loyal client".
You don't buy one and get one free in here, this isn't Pizza Hut!

Seriously, though.

I often wonder how people imagine the inside of a pharmacy to be like.
The people who have probably never stepped foot inside of one before.
You know, all those people who call us everyday to ask for silly things or even important medicine.
The people who get so upset if you keep them on hold as you answer the waiting.

I think, in their minds, the pharmacy is a magical world where hundreds of little people (emphasis on hundreds) dressed in white lab coats scurry around taking phone calls, preparing orders, checking prices, medicine availabilities, and giving shots. Where we - the pharmacists - hurry about measuring blood pressure and blood glucose, choosing the perfect shade of lipstick for people, and sell single diapers.

A world where orders reach you the moment you put down your phone, and anything you order is always in stock and expires in 2056.

Seriously though, I really doubt anybody understands how annoying it is to work in a pharmacy. How annoying it is to deal with people who are unrealistic, over demanding, and ungrateful. I'm not referring to every one of course. I'm referring to the man who calls and asks for 4 boxes of Zolam. I'm referring to the woman who wants me to send her a nail polish that is neither too pink nor too white.

These people need to step foot inside a real pharmacy, not the one in their head.
They need to put on a white lab coat, in a stuffy pharmacy, on a 40 degree day, and stay 8 hours long answering phone calls.
Not to punish them, nor poke fun at how they will deal with it, but simply to have them appreciate us and what we do more. To have them understand what it takes to balance all the phone calls and all the orders and all the requests without having it all explode in your face.
Just a little bit of gratitude. A little bit of appreciation. A little bit of understanding.
Is that too much to ask for?

Seriously, though.
I doubt it would make a difference!

Patient Counseling

"Is that the only cologne you have?!
Yes.
Are you sure?
Yes.
So you showed me everything you have?
Uhuh. 
Hmm. You know what would be absolutely wonderful?!
Yes?  
If you could be a doll and wrap that up for me.
I'm sorry?
You don't gift wrap here?
Ma'am, this is a pharmacy. Not a gift shop.
Hmm."

Forget the cologne.

It amuses me how just because you happen to work in a pharmacy, everyone believes that for some reason you have tried every single thing you sell.
And when you don't give a satisfactory response, then there is something wrong with you.

Which Fa do you think I should take? The pink one, or the golden one?  
Which Nivea roll on smells nicer?
Which shaving foam works better?
Should I use Vatika for my hair, or Pert Plus?
Does One work better, or Veet?

Wow, so many questions.
So little time to actually care.

It's also mind blowing how even after you do offer your assistance, your advice, your opinion, it is completely disregarded.


"Well Sir, in that case you should take an anti-diarrheal. An antispasmodic isn't enough. You need something to stop the diarrhea.
Yea, ok. But no. No, I'll just take the antispasmodic. Thanks."

"If she keeps getting feverish and isn't responding to the anti-pyretic, she has an infection and she's going to need an antibiotic.
Ok. Please just send the Abimol doctor, thank you."


"Don't believe everything you see on T.V. It doesn't work like that.
Are you sure? 
Yes. I'm positive.
I don't know. It looked very real. 
*silence* "

Well, don't mind me.
I'm just here for the nachos. 

That Awkward Moment

Whenever I tell anyone I work in a pharmacy, I always get that "I'm so sorry for your loss" look.
Literally.
I start getting things like :
"Oh my goodness, why?? What happened? You were such a good person."
"You were the last person I ever imagined this to happen to."
"Hopefully God will help you find something good.. you just hang in there you!"

They don't understand why I do it. It's not about the money, it's not about the enjoyment, it's about the gratitude.
It's about selling perfume and nail polish and eyeliner. Do not underestimate the importance of eyeliner.

*dramatic climax in background music*

I get to sell tampons and toothpaste and bleaching powder. I help people decide which hair dye to use everyday.
It isn't easy, but I do it everyday.
This world needs me.
I.. I am honored.
I .. am blessed.

Back to the money.

I was speaking with my father the other day. When it came up that I make about 100 dollars a month, he had a tiny panic attack. "100$ ?! Do you know how much I spent on your education!?" *hysterical laughter*

My education. hahahahaha
Don't get me started.

I don't do it for the money, I said.

I'm doing it to get to heaven. =/

I wouldn't mind being this kind of pharmacist if I had studied to become,well, this kind of pharmacist.

Screw Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pathology. Forget about Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology. Throw Physiology in the garbage, and have it take Fermentation along with it.

Such a waste of life to study all that, and excel in it, to end up counting down the hours in a stuffy pharmacy until you get to go home.

The irony of life.

If this doesn't get me to heaven, I'm not sure what will.

Shampoo

Got up at 7 am today. Because that's how I roll.

Of course when I stepped into the pharmacy at 8, the fan was on low again. It's 35 degrees outside but the doctor I'm exchanging shifts with gets cold for some reason. But, who am I to judge.

12 pm. Temperature's up to 40 now.
Huh? What's that? A.C you say?
Let me introduce you to the pharmacy AC.
It's been around for 25 solid years now. Nope, I kid you not.
I believe it's what you would call sacred.
It's so sacred, in fact, that it only cools down to 30 degrees. That's right. 28, on a really lucky day.
It's also so sacred, that we are ordered to time it to 2 hours, have it rest an hour, then let it work for 2 more.
Don't wanna tire it out now, do we?

Forget the AC.

I got the largest collection of shampoo orders today.
Important questions were asked like:
"Do you have Gliss for dry hair?"
"How much is the Herbal Essence shampoo for?" 
"Tell me ALL the types of Dove shampoo you have."

Felt like a true pharmacist. 

Forget the shampoo.

I can't stand the excitement.

Disclaimer

See, I always vowed from day one, that I would never ever ever work in a pharmacy.
It wasn't my thing. Working in a pharmacy for 8 straight hours a day would be the last day of my life.
(Said I, once upon a time.)

So, how did I end up in a pharmacy? Well, I guess it sort of just happened by exclusion. (Which also happens to be how I decided to study Pharmacy .. but, that's another story.)

It all started when I graduated a year ago, and took a good long look at "where do I go from here?".

And it looked something like this:

1) Work at a Pharmacy.
2) Become a Medical Representative at a Pharmaceutical Company.
3) Prepare my Master's Degree.
4) Head for the Academic Field, as a Teacher's Assistant.

As I explored these options, I formed an opinion about each one.

If you work at a pharmacy, all you will be getting is questions about which drug is cheaper, if you have anymore red halls, and if you could send over a couple antibiotics with the delivery boy.You will be selling pampers, shampoos, sun-tan lotion, gum, cough syrup, and if you're lucky .. get a few prescriptions !! Forget everything you learned about patient counseling and all that nonsense. The only thing you'll be counseling is which hair dye is better! Unfortunately, that is the view of pharmacists in Egypt.

If you're a medical rep. , be prepared to experience first hand the condescending attitude of physicians. You will drive long hours and wait even longer, and hope to get the attention you deserve !! I'm sorry, I don't find this a kind of job requiring the qualifications of a pharmacist! (refer to Season 5,Episode 16 of How I Met Your Mother for an elaboration!)Sometimes, very rare times, there is an opening for a Clinical Research Assistant. Sounds awesome when you put it that way! But take a closer look at your job description, and unfortunately you come to realize, it's not very different.

MSc? Here goes nothing. You decide to go through, once more, the hardships of studying. But it's not that easy! You must have the money, the energy, and the opportunity. Forget finding what interests you here in Egypt, if you want to study in a program that you chose based on what you want, you must be willing to travel abroad for it. But be careful, if you plan on returning to Egypt, don't chose something that has no future here! Which narrows it down once more, to the opportunities available here. And you thought you actually found something you liked. =)

TA. If this is something that interests you then by all means go for it!! But wait, you think it's easy? It's far from!! Even if you have an outstanding GPA , you won't find any vacancies because they will all be taken by people with an even HIGHER GPA!! True story.
Go find yourself an elementary school. Science teachers are cool.

As you see, the options were quite frustrating. Not just because it felt like I would never find a suitable job.
But also because I knew that sooner or later, I would have to choose one of those options to start out with and just suck it up.

And that is why I decided to work in a pharmacy.

Yes. I did this to myself.

Do I hate it?
I'll let you be the judge of that.

God grant me patience.