Who did Obama "appeal" to?

Look, APhA, you are sad.

I talked with a classmate today who doesn't seem to understand that pharmacists, just because they are capable of taking on the workload for certain physician/nurse tasks, may not ever do the things they were trained to do, or call the shots in how they're compensated for it. She was certified by APhA to give flu shots but the unfortunate truth is that she doesn't get paid to do it. Think about it: yes you are giving flu shots at your pharmacy, and having some role doing a task that is considered novel in pharmacy. Just because pharmacists are largely paid hourly, does this still mean we are being compensated for it, or that we're just passing on the buck to our employer? I don't believe pharmacists get paid more for this, it just adds to their headache since the work that was already yours to begin with has not necessarily gone away.

Stop and think for a moment, if you are an intern or licensed pharmacist: do you have any say whatsoever in your practice? I don't know the answer to this. Everytime I'm in the den of my employer who will remain nameless, I see pharmacists working registers, taking out the trash, being told when to take a break and what to do, filling out unnecessary forms...just doing a lot of bullshit tasks that no professional in law, accounting, or even medicine would ever deal with. But what makes pharmacists so different? Why were they so easy to take advantage of with money? All these professionals make a good deal of money---hell, I think lawyers have the potential to make much more me thinks. But how do pharmacists put up with this?

So does it make sense to say we as pharmacists are controlled by multiple other professions by virtue of our minority population? 500,000 nurses and maybe over 150,000 physicians in the state of California...how many pharmacists? 23,000. APhA vs. the AMA: what president in his right mind is going to address David as WELL as Goliath?

Is it better for my mental well-being to be as pie-in-the-sky as my classmate about things? That it's just going to "happen" when the time comes that our scope of practice is going to increase just because there is increased pressure on physicians? Yes, indeed we have petty immunization rights and freakish hoops to get through to prescribe, at the mercy of a physician in some cases. As per another blog I read by Jim Plagakis, the AMA has "bigger fish to fry" such as improving the state of affairs for PHYSICIANS.

The problem is, the APhA doesn't do the same for the professionals it represents: while heralding the old news issues of immunizing patients and screening for disease states, etc., the ugly, red-headed and freckled truth is that the average pharmacist just merely wants more humane working conditions, more help behind the counter, and more time with their patients. It seems like pharmacists will only be confrontational with an entity more faceless than their employers: big pharma, but they will never criticize or stand up to their employer for denying them a vacation time during summer (when the kids are actually out of school), or for making life hell by cutting staff, making it even more impossible to fulfill their professional duties to consult and monitor patients. APhA-ers will decry direct-to-consumer advertising like it's such a great cause and because EVERYBODY ELSE does it. They'll simply state "Biologic drugs need to be made into generics immediately so that these life-saving meds may reach the hands of patients who need them!" Come on, Profession-of-Pharmacy! Are we really this naive? Do we have no sense to actually think outside of the box for once about how our health care system works, and how, in this country, inventors are awarded and given incentives for developing ingenius things because they get to patent it? Unfortunately this all boils down to who and what APhA is all about: reinforcing Papa Physician as supreme and Mama Pharmacist as the domesticated, subservient housewife. If you're still reading, are you angry yet? Do you feel a fire to cut the crap and have a spine and actually take pride in the work you do?

It is for this reason that I am going to join the AMA for a year or so and assess why there is such a difference between them and the APhA even though both physicians and pharmacists become doctors. I'm not going to watch my future profession be squandered like this. Nobody is doing this to us: we are doing it to ourselves by obeying the status quo and letting people less knowledgeable than us be in the driver's seat.

Let's face it: only pharmacists can take responsibility for the shitty state of the profession. So I ask you: what common ground do we have that will unite us to actually make a difference? Cause it ain't the APhA...although they do have fun conferences.