Are you a jaded pharmacist?

Do you know the difference between your training brain and your racing brain?

Over the course of a season, a triathlete will undergo countless workout sessions of varying demands with the lake, pool, track, trail, road and bike. We will go slow, do sprints, and find hill repeats with high-intensity intervals. While we will push ourselves, it is difficult to mimic race day.

This is because triathletes have a training brain and a racing brain.

The training brain resembles the pharmacy day. It is stuck in practice mode (all work without the reward). Practices are stitched together like a quilt to form the product that comes to life on race day, yet we still struggle with the lack of tangible reward that race day brings. The training brain shies away slightly from rain, cold weather, weeds in the lake and annoying traffic on the bike. It never really brings its true potential.

For the triathlete, race day is go-time where the struggles of practice do not matter. When race brain kicks in, triathletes are resilient to the outside world because we have skin in the game and there is something worth fighting for. On race day we are nearly invincible with record levels of mental toughness to push through any obstacle.

Pharmacy’s training brain

The problem with pharmacy is that it is all practice. It is training without race day. The daily grind offers much of the same training as it did the day before. After a short time, we become jaded. We practise with repetitive questions, monotonous problems, completing the daily-weekly-monthly tasks and draft endless calendars. We sometimes feel like we are using our clinical brain sub-optimally, sucking motivation to invent and find ourselves lacking tangible product by the end of the day.  

Pharmacy’s racing brain

While the day-to-day routines are imperative for managing a safe and profitable dispensary, we need to find our racing brain regularly enough to stimulate new energy. Pharmacy is what we make it and we can find our races by putting ourselves out there beyond traditional pharmacist work.

Clinically, we can host a vaccine clinic, give a talk, sign up for a credentialed training program in a disease state relevant to your practice or perhaps an online university course offering a leadership diploma. We can use our medical expertise to get involved in a community health program in partnership with police or paramedics.

Operationally, we can publish a pharmacy succession plan or become a preceptor to pharmacy students of international graduates.

Tactically, we can become business owners. We can own a pharmacy or build a concrete program within our existing pharmacy. We can invest in new technology or offer relief shifts in another pharmacy or sector of pharmacy.

If you are feeling a little jaded and your pharmacy brain is stuck in practice mode, find a race. You are bound to notice the change in your pharmacy brain.

To help uncover your next chapter or kickstart your racing brain, apply to Cascade, a pharmacy mastermind.