This is why the image of PhRMA is so bad!!

Pharmaceutical companies spend significant time and money developing, "The first and only approved FDA treatment for inadequate and not enough lashes," and come up with new diseases like "hypotrichosis."

I predict that there will soon be a series of studies presented at medical meetings showing the burden of Hypotrichosis on society and the cost effectiveness of Latisse compared to fake eye lashes.

“Procrastination: A hardening of the oughteries.”

I hate hearing students say, "I don't do my assignments until the last minute because I work better under pressure." One reason this is a sore point with me is that I have to grade some of the crap they submit. Another reason I hate to hear it is because I know that procrastination will hurt them in the future.

Procrastination might be one of the most important things that influences the success of anyone including pharmacists. That's the message coming from Piers Steel, author of the Procrastination Equation. Steel says that people who procrastinate are more likely to be poor, put off necessary health care, have damaged relationships, and many other bad things.

I doubt that our students are any worse than earlier generations at procrastinating. The difference today is that there are too many distractions that permit procrastination -- the Internet, cell phones, and 24-hour media.

Success in pharmacy requires individuals to learn to control their tendency toward procrastination. One strategy I have used which made a big difference in my life was removing all games including solitaire and hearts from my computer.

Now I know have plenty of time to find other excuses to procrastinate.

I used to be an international drug smuggler

When visiting my in-laws in Yuma Arizona, I used to accompany them on trips across the border to Algodones, Mexico. We would stop by pharmacies where I could purchase cheap, prescription-strength ibuprofen (AKA Motrin). As you might expect, the prices were amazingly cheap.

And then, we would illegally bring them back across the border.

Yes, illegally. There is a law against importing prescription drugs. The border agents just don't enforce it. People often don't know about the law against importing drugs, and even worse, they don't realize how unsafe it is. That's because drugs outside of the US are outside of the FDA system of safety and manufacturing control

Last night, I watched a 60 Minutes episode on TV which illustrated the risks of drug importation. I recommend you watch to get some idea about the risks of importation.

Google's guide to better bosses

The New York Times had an article today describing Google's plan, code-named Project Oxygen, which sought rules for building better bosses.

If these rules are generalizable to other settings, like pharmacy (and I think they are), pharmacists can learn from them.

One finding is that professionals want a boss with technical skills. These technical skills help in advising the team and when pitching in to help as needed. Having and using technical skills helps the boss retain credibility with the team and show that she cares.

The other finding is that technical skills are much less important than people skills -- ranked eighth of the eight skills measured.

These findings are consistent with my experience which is that pharmacist managers can help relationships with staff by rolling up their sleeves and helping out from time-to-time.

However, helping out too often can take the pharmacist manager away from their other job -- managing people. And ultimately, managing people is much of what managers add to the team.

Pharmacist managers who can't juggle the competing technical and people skills will ultimately hurt the team.

Robots were too late to replace me

One of the reasons I left hospital pharmacy practice was the mind-numbing tedium of much of my daily tasks. I kept thinking, "When are they going to develop robots to do this, so I can find better ways of helping the patient?".

Well it seems that finally have invented such robots.

Too late for me, though.

Can pharmacists be replaced by computers?

In the New York Times recently, the Nobel Prize winning Paul Krugman discussed the mistaken belief that higher education will ensure a good career.

He cited other economists who state that computers will be able to replace anyone who is doing, “cognitive and manual tasks that can be accomplished by following explicit rules.” Computers are much better at doing these things. These are exactly the kinds of tasks that many pharmacists have excelled in over the years and therefore likely to be replaced by computers.

Success in the pharmacy of the future is more likely for pharmacists who are good at jobs that can’t be carried out by following explicit rules — communications, pharmacoeconomics, personnel management, social marketing, and many other problem solving skills that students seem to resist.

If pharmacy students don't want to learn to work with ambiguity, there is another option suggested by Krugman. Most manual labor being done in the U.S. is hard to automate. Therefore, many jobs of the future will be truck driving, janitorial work, and other forms of physical labor.

Its the student's choice.

Attributes of a great pharmacist

A colleague of mine, Laura Morgan, asked students what attributes make a good pharmacist. She then put their responses in a word cloud. This is the result.

At first, I thought "these are great!"

Now, I've changed my mind. I now think the listed attributes indicate a certain level of passivity. I don't see advocate, leadership, innovative, or other proactive attributes. The attributes they list are nice but seem wussy to me.

The future of health information

I edited and authored several chapters relating to health information technology in the textbook, "Introduction to Hospital and Health-System Pharmacy Practice." 1st ed. Bethesda, Maryland: American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists; 2010.

Sometimes it's hard to explain in text about the future of health information. Now, I have help with this great video from YouTube.

Why lectures suck

People learn by:
1. listening
2. doing
3. reading
4. talking to other about what they know
5. watching others do something
6. making mistakes and correcting those mistakes

Lectures only utilize (1) listening which is usually tied with (3) reading. That is the way education used to be and still is in many places.

Project-based learning (also called case-based or problem- based) can employ all six of the above ways of learning for students. The problem is that it requires a teacher who is knowledgeable, flexible, creative, and committed to student learning. It also requires much more time from the professor. These things are not always available in pharmacy educational settings.

Watch this video. It clearly illustrates the value of project based learning. But to really understand, you need to apply the method on sayyyy.....a PROJECT!