I’m feeling a little over-worked lately and as such haven’t been POQing as much, in more ways than one (did I type that out loud? Filter…filter…). I find it funny how feeling over-worked can take on so many variations of tired-ness. At the moment I seem to wake up looking at my Outlook, check my mail to and from the office and am still staring at one project or another by the time 10pm rolls around. This is not only leaving me tired but tired of all things work-ish, including several colleagues I’d like to squish down on the copy machine just for kicks.
Anyyyhoooo…I’ve just spent the last paragraph complaining and yet when I look back at what it meant to be BUSY and TIRED in my community pharmacy days, I would not trade what I have now for anything. Back lo’ those many years I spent a whole year working relief in some of City X’s most busy pharmacies, ranging from the most-posh to the most-not neighbourhoods. The Pharmacy Chain that I worked for had a system of “urgent”, “soon” and “later” prescriptions and there were some 8 and 12 hour shifts that I could not get my head far enough above the “urgents” to even make a dash to the powder room. In TWELVE HOURS. Of course I hadn’t ingested any liquids during that time either so it didn’t really matter. In one heroic instance there was a sea of patients waiting for their “urgents” and one Grumpy Mc Grumpy pants was getting a little testy – after all, he HAD been waiting for 5 minutes, tsk tsk on me the lone pharmacist and my 2 tech rangers. Then, a lovely women who can best yet still inadequately be described as “angelic” snapped back – THEY ARE GOING AS FAST AS THEY CAN. I wanted to hug her. And did her script first – BOO YAH!
But in various circles that I lean in to every now and again there is a lot of attention on the pharmacy workforce situation, both in the homeland and abroad. Years ago there truly seemed to be a pharmacist shortage – we named our price and got it, DAMMIT! Our price, our place, our benefits, you name it. Now, however, the tables seem to be turning – jobs seem not to be so plentiful and the utopia has all but disappeared.
This of course is a far cry from what has come to be known as the global health workforce crisis, a situation that claims to need thousands of skilled health workforce in any manner of country. The World Health Organization has even developed a Global Health Workforce Alliance to deal with such issues. While I do not deny that skilled and trained healthcare professionals are pinnacle to the health of communities, regardless of socio-economic development, I can’t help but wonder how increasing pharmacists in countries that have no water and food will make the most efficient difference to people in need.
I’m just sayin’, is all.
In the meantime I would rather work 24 hours on a paper than ever, EVER fight with the mo’fo’ insurance-problem-label-making-3rd-party-reimbursement computer system again.