Pharmacy U news

Ever find yourself working harder than you need to in the process of buying something for your pharmacy? When choosing a vendor, I have learned that I prefer to do business with those I can communicate with, which is a nice way of saying that I do not have to babysit them.

Having leadership guidelines – like a road map – remember road maps, pre-GPS? – ensures your team knows your expectations and those of your store or the organization which you lead or where you work. I call this my – but ultimately the team’s – Leadership Code.

Normally, I go out of my way to point out my blog comments are my own and not necessarily shared by any organization with which I am professionally affiliated. However, while the views below are certainly my own, I find it difficult, in today’s blog, to distance myself from my employer, Neighbourly Pharmacy.

Most pharmacy owners retain a financial advisor selected early in their commercial life without thoroughly analyzing whether that advisor remains a good fit for them. What should pharmacists and pharmacy owners consider when choosing the right financial advisor?

The good old pharmacy model saw the pharmacist as the firefighter and the architect, with burnout waiting around the corner. This one-person band put out fires and built buildings. However, since pharmacy is much more complex today, we find that the traditional jack-of-all-trades pharmacist divided into two different people.

Too often, we “recruit” for our teams and processes. We fill gaps with what's available, sometimes settling for what works “for now.” Maybe we hire a support staff member because we urgently need help, and once the position is filled, we stop thinking about what could be better.

All too often pharmacists pick continuing education topics based on availability and not on their learning needs or the demographics of their patients. If a pharmacist has a practice that predominantly serves older patients, learning should focus on skills and education tailored to this patient group.

Across years of experience practising pharmacy, a pharmacist may go through a natural incline in ego during a steep initial learning phase, followed by a plateau. Here pharmacists have seen many of the more intense challenges already and the number of new headaches flattens out. Finally, towards approximately the last third of the pharmacists’ career, they begin feeling less driven by ego and let the problems around them simmer or settle.