Observation

I am sitting with future pharmacists. They mirror current pharmacists. They are bizarre, obsessed, unable to function in normal society, left brain Nazis and still wouldn't see the big picture if you shot it with your iPhone. Through desire, parental pressure and outright emotional emptiness, the vast majority of these student pharmacists welcomed the idea of being fully indoctrinated and institutionalized by themselves and the school's they go to. But they've been training for this institutionalization since day 1. The obsession with grades.

The obsession with grades. If you are a grad student with any kind of measurable soul, you know that the personality of grad students around you will make life tough. An obsession with grades is the product of years of fear of not being "smart" enough, and like I said, emptiness. It's a cover up for any real internal substance. The inside of your 20-something grad student is ripe green---> the years of undergraduate training, social sacrifice and ignorance of the world around have taken their toll, and the result is not pretty. These students will harass professors to no end in order to gain 1 or 2 points on a question they clearly missed. They will discuss exam answers with each other for as many as 2-3 hours after the test, perpetuating the drama they experienced before, during and of course after the exam's actual occurrence. They need to know if they were right. They need to know how many they missed. They want to prevent that surprise when the grades roll in. Your behavior is a manifestation of what you think about, and 90% of the time, these students are obsessing about school. It's a poor existence.

My ex girlfriend just graduated from optometry school. We dated in undergraduate, and she was a pretty amazing person. Loving, not too obsessed and logical, not too consumed by school and the entire drama centrifuge of getting into a program. I recently asked her for recommendations for cheap optometry services for glasses and contacts. I had no idea what she had become after a 4 year hiatus of any meaningful exchange or conversation. She played the professional with me. She recommended more optometrists after I already got a prescription. She recommended me, a pharmacy student, look into Restasis for my eyes. I don't blame her for playing doctor, but her professional opinion sounded like she owed a friend a favor, or like it was copy and pasted straight from an optometry professional organization's website...if I may correlate, a student in my class today tried to discuss the "65 to survive" concept today as a way of mobilizing people to go to a state pharmacy organization's yearly conference. She literally read a statement monotonously. This is what my ex sounded like. She recommended I go on Restasis without ever giving me the exam. An optometrist of 30 years did not recommend this after an actual examination, but she did. This is an indication of what grad students learn in school, and upon coming out, thinking they're hot shit. She has no joined the phalanxes of delusioned new doctors who have been conned into believing health care is something it's not. Your patient will demand a drug after being empowered by the advice of actors on a Cymbalta commercial. Then, their insurance company WILL choose what drugs you go on, not your doctor. Pharmacists? They have doctorates, but are not doctors. Only in the academic (read: world of make believe) sphere will you ever hear pharmacists address each other as Dr.

Around me, actual RPhs are getting more and more frank about what they think of this "profession". "It's a job" says my preceptors, co-workers, and even district manager. Talk about a douchebag, the latter.

And that's the problem. Not the "chains". Not the "patients" and "insurance companies". PHARMACISTS have caused this downward spiral for pharmacy in general. They easily sell out. They lack the personality and assertiveness to stand their ground. They live a life of euphemisms, bonding about the weather and putting on a cardigan on Saturdays to play the "I am a professional out on the town tonight" ploy.

I am an un-grad student. I am a grad student. I just do my thing. I experiment with drugs all the time. I sleep with a lot of people. I travel all the time. I fiercely devour life around me and maybe get around to reading that evening. I work a ton of hours. And yet, I still get through school because any person with any power of observation can tell the education regimen is a scam to create enough contact hours to charge enough money to make your students obedient enough to allow the card holders responsible for engendering the New World Order to continue to exert their will.

As I write this, I have to guffaw to myself. I'm probably NOT the only person thinking this shit. I look around class and I see some people actively highlighting their notes as the teacher talks, I see some people lounging back and texting people on their phones, and I just locked eyes with a girl who seemed to be doing what I was doing---> surveying the surroundings for signs of something other than sedation. The problem is that the status quo is so pervasive. The suppression of free will is so great in this milieu. The type of student gravitating towards this kind of work is too predictably easily influenced.

I'm not on the dark side or anything. I've just become a pharmacist along with the rest of the pharmacists, before even getting my degree. When at work, I am there to make money. I act selfishly at work, roll my eyes the 7th time I get a question about whether Zyrtec or Claritin is better (APhA would call this "patient education"). I'll treat people who come in drive thrus and ring the bell in a poor way. This job is meant for money-mongering. And I'm completely fine with it and used to it. I'd advise any students currently in grad school to relax, start studying less, enjoy your youth; smell the flowers. Because you will remain unfulfilled. If you're thinking about going to pharmacy school, don't do it. There are no jobs :)

I think I know why...

I am suffering from pretty major depression, most likely catalyzed by the Accutane I took 6 years ago. I've had depression for 5 years and life gets difficult whenever something doesn't go my way. Is this why I'm angry at the pharmacy profession?

This is just a poem...that I'll edit for days to come

Sunday of a Million Years

Today was a Sunday of a million years
A vision of beauty
Tainted by pain
Lights of a blazing sun baked down on me
But you weren't there

In a clearing, the lawn and the sky were hand in hand at the horizon
People walked away from me
Their faces hidden by the back of their heads
I could see your face
But you weren't there

The weekend's behind me
Memories of maybe from Friday
Descend to realities on Sunday
You pray for the afterlife
On a Sunday of a million years