Lynn is a pharmacist with the Kroger Company. Working in a retail environment, Lynn stresses that preparation for her role differs slightly from pharmacy careers in hospital or even clinics. The best way to learn the differences is to take advantage of every academic experience that comes your way!
Transcript
>> My name is Lynn Marshall. I am a pharmacist. I've been a pharmacist for many years. I work for the Kroger Company, and so that's a retail setting. I have been doing, I work part-time. I have been with Kroger for about 5 years. I've been other things along the way, but that's where I'm currently at. Today's retail setting is driven by processes, by computer programs. And a lot of times you think, why should it take so long to fill your prescription? And really, one, it's because of volume if it takes a long time. If it doesn't take a long time, then there may not be a lot of volume in the store. But it's a entire, run by computer program, if you will, and has lots of different angles that obviously corporate America can draw from. So when a prescription comes, we find out the person, we want to know who they are, have they been there before, are they going to wait, are they going to come back? You know, you can kind of scan it. When you've done it long enough, you just know the questions to ask. If you know the person, then obviously you don't have to take time asking where they're from and address and medical conditions and allergies and things of that sort. But once we get the prescription, then everything has to be inputted. And today most things are scanned in, so it's all scanned in, generally by a technician, not by the pharmacist. Most of that work is all done by a technician. The prescription is typed up, if you will, which entails the name, the date, the drug, the directions, the doctor, any little piece of information that's on that prescription is then inputted. But the time it gets to the pharmacist, we're the people who check it. Initially we'll check it for, is everything correct on there? Then it's sent back to a technician who actually will fill the prescription. Once it's filled, it comes back to the pharmacist, and again it's another check that everything has been done properly and that the right drug is in the bottle and it's going to the right person. And that you're going to be healthy because you came to pick up your medicine. So from there the pharmacist may take it to the patient. Generally there's always an opportunity for a patient to ask questions if they don't understand something, and that's really where pharmacists generally like to get involved just because they have that opportunity to clarify or help or educate. And educate is a huge piece, and there's probably not enough time for that these days.
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