It's interesting to consider previous posts at this blog. They were headed with 'Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Allspice' using the related moniker: Cinnamon. Because I do not identify myself as 'just' a pharmacist, this post was a catch-all for domestic and eclectic interests as well as a typical feminine-type of identifer. Cinnamon was chosen for several different reasons. One reason is that it is an alliteration of my initials CMN. Another possible pseudonym, Chameleon, might be appropriate but whenever I've attempted to use it usually has already been taken. Other monikers I've used include, The Pharmacist, Jade (for my favorite color), Zircon (for a word I missed in a State Spelling Bee), and LD50placebo effect (for a bit of joviality), as well as my real maiden name RPh. Once I used, 'A Concerned Pharmacist', and have used Territorial Babe to express an unpopular opinion of a woman who tried to treat the role of vice presidential candidate as a high school popularity contest in an attempt to discredit the value of having rational personal integrity outside of being a 'tool' even for her husband. My son uses his real name for his blog, but I couldn't risk possibly embarrassing my family if I expressed an opinion that seemed out of sync with the image projected as their mother or wife, or even sibling.
I found several identifiable attitudes when using Cinnamon as a pseudonym. The two women I knew as Cinnamon were quite different; one was a vivacious upperclassman in high school. She was smart, and also a member of academic, social, and sports-related activities. Her hair was brown as I recall. The other Cinnamon was in pharmacy school, again, smart and sociable, as well as a country-music singer who played gigs on the weekend as others might wait tables, or wash dishes for college funds. She might have had blond hair, not a cinnamon strand.
These women were typical of who I'd anticipate having Cinnamon as a birth name. I didn't know anyone with Cinnamon as a nickname, yet when signing myself as 'Cinnamon' several males called me in not so many words a 'whore'. I have never known any nightclub strippers, let alone one named 'Cinnamon'. I also knew as Ginger, a woman who had dark hair and was as warm and friendly as one might have as a younger sister--well, that would be my younger sister.
Ginger, the pharmacy technician, was a woman I met in a small farming town Wal-mart Pharmacy. Ginger had not a ginger bone in her body. She was sweet, quick, and empathetic, and training to be a kindergarten teacher. She had infinite patience. She was the only tech on duty working with me, the agency relief pharmacist that day. Not an employee of Wal-mart, but as a principled primarily hospital pharmacist working agency jobs for experience as well as extra income. By principled, there were certain things that once I had the hang of being in the retail setting would or should not get past me unlike previous agency workers or even the regular pharmacist.
When I first started out, as I recall the first day at a Wal-mart at a shop in a major city 60 miles away, I think I nearly frightened the two technicians to death or gave them a good scare about what might happen on their watch. The two technicians I'll give as their real names because I don't anticipated running into them anytime in the future. They are pharmacists, by now, Adrian at Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, or maybe it was St. Louis College--anyway, a big name pharmacy school, and the other guy whose name I never can remember right off the bat because it's an unusual ethnic name as he seemed to be second generation. He graduated Purdue, another big name pharmacy school, and I recognized his name right off when looking over the list of new grads.
The foibles that first day working for the agency would nearly unnerved one never to return, but I justified the adventure of it as the first day as a retail pharmacist ever. Not letting on to Adrian and the other guy that probably was a good move on my part. They probably thought I was just a ding-bat and hopefully that was it. Adrian seemed a genuinely laid-back individual. He was tremendously organized, and greatly effective in his attempts to set my anxiety index lower so that I could think straight. The other pharmacy tech tried his hardest to be everything he could be, also, tremendously smart and organized but he once or twice let his anxiety slip out and I could tell that he wished he had not signed up for this particular Saturday morning.
When taking the assignment, I was given the store phone number, but not told that I needed to extract important information from the pharmacist on duty before the assigned shift. I located the shop using MapQuest online and estimate the time of the commute and prepared for the drive. I knew it was a weekend shift with weekend hours and I was the only one assigned, so I'd have to open up and close, but it was also a national holiday which meant its share of special issues.
I started out in plenty of time, but there is only so much time one can make up when the first thing that happens is that my car quits. I don't remember the scenario, but I was able to rent another quickly and started out again only 15 minutes later than planned so I figured that if I as the one closest to being on duty, there'd be no need to cancel, and try to get someone else at the last moment. So, I just increased my highway speed a little.
Normally the store wants the pharmacist to arrive 15-30 minutes before it opens, and I arrived to the store with minutes to spare before the door should have opened, but had no codes to open doors or start the computer. Even when the floor manager was able to contact someone to get them, it was difficult to unlock a combination lock on the first try if too many attempts sets off the alarm. Most locks I've been responsible for unlock for the first time, end up requiring a call to the security company or police department to ignore the warning the place is being broken in and possibly vandalized.
Besides, this pharmacy was part of Wal-mart's remodeling project. When Wal-mart remodels, I've noticed, they make a mini-pharmacy inside a locked cage with light and pressure-sensitive security warnings all around the cage. So, I'm trying to get the pharmacy open and there are sirens blaring all around from tripping the wrong code input and tripping the electric eye. Fail too many attempts or try to get in a circuitous route and alarms go off, too. So, the other tech whose name is still not coming to me, arrived to work and first duty is to help the agency pharmacist get the shop open.
Meanwhile patients were lining up, dropping off scripts, asking questions. I try not to get noticeably panicked. Techs are not supposed to know codes for getting into the shop, and generally they do not, but students might find it in their best interest to know things to keep things running smoothly, as someday, after graduation they will be in charge.
Then, when we opened the shop, the next undertaking was to get the computer system up and running to process prescriptions. The pharmacist sign-on was required first before the store prescription could be dispense.That was another dilly. It required a call to another Wal-mart pharmacy. Eventually this hurdle was cleared and we began processing scripts waiting from the patient request queue, the 'auto-refill' program, and urgent matters of patients waiting in line.
The patients didn't seem particularly upset at first, but as time seemed to stand still for them, and they had to be other places at certain times on a Saturday morning, there were a few sharp words. When patients started calling to see if their prescriptions had been called in and showing up, again a call to another shop was necessary for the codes to listen to the voicemail message, then there were additional steps to take when patients requested they have their prescriptions transferred.
So, the day progressed. Running back and forth checking what Adrian and the other tech had filled, trying to answer questions. I recall only two incidents in which the other tech seemed visibly lose his 'cool'. One was when a patient, an older gentleman, quietly questioned the number of refills originally entered in the computer system. By this time I was familiar enough with the computer to access facsimiles of the originals, so I told the patient to stick his head over to the screen and see what it said. The presence of a customer in the pharmacy upset the tech greatly and he nearly ran from the other side of the cage to shoo him out quickly, explaining that customers were never allowed in the pharmacy. I could see the logic in it, and have never invited a patient into the pharmacy since. In my hospitals, I was never shy about inviting the physicians in to wait while I made up their Abciximab drip STAT. Some pharmacists found the presence of the doc unnerving, but it always made me work more accurately, unless of course I had to do other things distracting to the matter at hand. But, a doc's behavior is probably more predictable than a patient.
The second matter that I went over and over with the other tech, was when a patient came in with no refills on her lisinopril prescription, and the only record we had in the computer was an enalapril filled a year earlier. In the meantime she'd been enlisted in a mail-order prescription service and since the doc's office was closed until the next Tuesday, and I didn't have a 'feel' for the local physicians, I told her I needed for her to bring in her bottle. She had it in her possession but it was out refills. No matter how hard I tried to imagine a patient out of her blood pressure medication for three days, the greedy 'what if I get in trouble' gremlin showed its horns. And, I did not fill any even at no charge. Years later, I still feel bad about not filling even a few days to help her get by until the mail-order supply arrived in her mailbox.
That day was only the first of the fill-in pharmacist adventures. Since then I've worked at many different kinds of shops and with many different kinds of people. Inevitably, however, if someone forgets that the pharmacy cannot remain open without the pharmacist on duty, I'm not hesitant about taking the keys and saying the pharmacy is closed for the day. Techs do not run the shop. The pharmacy buyer doesn't run the shop. Patients do not run the shop, and neither does the store manager. I am licensed and every state I'm licensed required a licensed pharmacist on duty to perform the job of a pharmacist.
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