Pharmacy. Jim Plagakis. Pharmacist

Publication of the National Association of Retail Druggists (NARD), now called American Community Pharmacists Association.

Ignorance is Bliss.  Or… is it just Ignorance.  The modern pharmacy schools are robo-dispenser Mills that put out the metrics-minding, speed-burner 14 hour shift factory piece-work dispensers that believe that what they do is practicing pharmacy.   Goose and Peon and Steve and Pharmacy Gal have had their feet in this mud puddle for a long time and they know what it is to be a “Druggist”.

There was a time when “Druggist” was a derisive label.  It was not as professional as pharmacist.  It painted a picture of a balding guy wearing a bow-tie who always had time for the patients.  Before Durham-Humphrey, a Druggist was an alternative to the Doctor.  After the early 1950s, people still came to the drug store expecting the druggist to help them.  We did too.  The OTC shelves were choking with really good drugs.  Merrill made an OTC antacid with 5 mg of dicyclomine per 15 ml.  Diarrhea was a significant problem back then.  We bought Lomotil by the thousands.  A patient could bypass the doctor and get paregoric in 60 ml bottles from the Druggist.  Sign the “Exempt Narcotic” register and wait the prescribed length of time before coming back.  Cough-Cheracol, ETH & Codeine and Robitussin AC.

It was a different world.  I liked it a lot.  It was fun and I perceived that I was making a difference.   At Wentlings, there was a lunch counter.  We gave prescription patients a coupon for a cup of coffee while they waited.  And, they had to wait.  I’d estimate that 30% of all prescriptions were compounded.  I’d often go over to the counter and have a cup of Joe with them before or after I completed their order.  As I said, a different world, one that was fun.

The other evening I was remembering Charles Larwood.  He was the Dean of The College of Pharmacy.  He was also a Pharmacognocist.  What the?? That is what some of you newbies just asked.  Pharmacognosy.  That probably is not offered at 95% of the schools.  I would bet that the dean of Touro University, one of what I have termed the boutique pharmacy schools, does not even know what pharmacognosy is.  No shit, I am serious.

Anyway, I was imagining having a Friday night vodka martini with Dean Larwood.  I took a sip, too much vermouth and only one olive.  My ideal martini has a drop or two of dry vermouth and three olives.  I explained the 14 hour work day to the dean.  He tapped the table with his right forefinger.  His eyes widened and he pursed his lips tightly. “You can’t go to the bathroom?”  After 5 minutes, he raised his right hand, palm toward me, the universal signal to stop.

“It shouldn’t be this way,” he says.

“The pharmacy schools are the pimps for the drug store companies,” I said.  ”They are gluttons for the donations.”

“It shouldn’t be this way,” the dean repeated.

I do not see how we can fix it.  Guys like me, Peon and Steve are done other than the shouting.  Shouting is all we can do.  Goose will be around for awhile as will be Pharmacy Gal, but these kids do not know anything.

The quintessential pharmacist’s art is compounding and these new schools do not even teach it.  No one other than the pharmacist can legally compound and they don’t teach it.  Give me a break.  Compounding is ours.  We need to covet it and charge plenty for it.  New pharmacists do not know how to do it.

They have not been taught the art of being a “Druggist”.  If they lose this, they are losing it all.  Pharmacies become dispensaries.  I have no problem with dispensaries like CVS or like the mail orders run, by the way.  Just do not call them pharmacies.

I spent lots of time with a brand new pharmacist before I left Galveston.  She knows what a Druggist is now.  She knows that Druggists are the elite pharmacists.  It is more so a ground of being.  We spent a decent amount of time compounding.  She knows that using an over-sized bottle and making a “Shake” lotion is much simpler than using a mortar and pestle.  You also get a more elegant product.

I did my part, you guys.  Just one 20 something girl who now thinks and acts like a “Druggist”.  What about you?  Fuck this preceptor shit.  Be a mentor.

The comments on the original “Bad Ass” theme are terrific.  If you have the time, go back a couple three years in the archives and read some of the comments.  The general impression was that pharmacists were like the chubby, effeminate sopranos in the men’s choir.  No vision, no guts, no future, no balls.  The pathetic evidence is in their comments.  I trust that you girls can get this.  A feminine characterization would be a woman with her face covered, walking four feet behind her husband and looking at the ground.

There was one important comment that came to me at jpgakis@hotmail.com.  The writer asked me to remain anonymous and to not copy and paste the letter.  But I gotta pass on the message.  The writer feels really good.  Self-assured and confident.  The use of tradecraft is life.  This woman (Yes, a female crusader) is on a mission to make a big dent in the drug store company that she works for.  They have mistreated her, she believes.  The have arbitrarily moved her away from the store she had been in for almost two decades.  Her commute was ten minutes.  Now, it is an hour.  She got mightily pissed.  She said, “Information is my weapon.”  She prints and saves every email and memo.  Some of them, she claims, are damning to the District Manager.  She recently bought a clandestine voice recorder from an Internet security provider.  She downloads all recordings to two files on her computer.  One labeled:  ”Gotcha” and another “.  She asked my advice.  ”What do I do with all of this?”  I honestly don’t know, but, I’d bet that some of you do.  Good for her.  I wish I was 40 years old again and know what I know now.  This woman is a major Bad Ass in my book.

Here are just a few others:  We know who is at the top.  He took on Big Stupid and won.  Goose is loaded for bear and just wants a posse to go with him.  Pharmacy Gal, she will step up when it is time.  Steve, as always, like a predator waiting for Big Evil to make another mistake.  Peon.  This guy has been playing hard for years.

THESE ARE ALPHA MALES PLAYING ON THE “A” TEAM.  There are others out there.   Maybe you just don’t know that you are one of them.

5/14/13….You know, you guys, that we live our lives on automatic, not really conscious of what we are doing.  We are asleep.  The worst thing for Big Drug Store is if a bunch of us woke up at the same time.

 You get out of bed, scratch the itchy areas.  Shave or put on a little makeup.  You dress in the “uniform”.  Casual pants or slacks.  A shirt or blouse.  You actually have your work clothes  in a designated area of the closet.   If a tie is mandatory,  you put on one of the five that are work ties.  You know the ones that have ketchup stains and are choking, absolutely choking, with bacteria from patients coughing or just breathing on you.  

I quit wearing a tie (actually threw away 90% of my ties) when I read about the toxic ties in The New York Times a couple years ago.  Google it.  If you read the reports and continue wearing a tie, you are an idiot on drive.  I was asked about “Why no tie?”.  I gave the questioner a copy of the Times piece and let it be known that I would never again wear a tie to work.  There was a “Hmmmph” and a stare, but I was never asked about it again.  I worked the last year of my drug store career wearing “golf” shirts, short sleeve and very comfortable and good looking.  No white jacket.

Anyway, after brushing your teeth to make sure the purple wine stains are removed,  you grab a Quaker Breakfast bar and hit the road.

 The following 8 or 12  or 14 hours are conducted totally asleep, on automatic.  You never question the insane multi-tasking around 12 noon.  You know what I am talking about.  This is no way to conduct the business of an important medical professional.  There is No You there, just a frikkin’ dispenso-robot.  No wonder you have so little self-respect.  And the problem is NOT the profession.  It is YOU that is the problem in your work life.  Have you noticed the one consistent fact when you are having problems at work?  YOU are always there.

So, wake the fuck up.  Rather than just walk shackled to the next task, look at what you are doing.  Notice how you feel about it.  Document everything.  Like this:  Today, I knew that I should have intervened in that temazepam prescription for the 90 year old woman.  I did nothing because I have never done anything about anything in the last ten years.  This shit has got to stop.  

After you have 20 pages, read them.  Share them with a colleague you trust.  Suggest that perhaps asking guidance from The Guild might be a good idea.  If the fucker stabs you in the back, get him (or her if you are a woman) in the parking lot at 10:10 PM some night and knock him around.  When you have his ass sitting on the ground, threaten the fucker.  Threats are nothing, by the way.  Police laugh at you if you think they will investigate a threat.

Does that sound too severe?  Hey, these are desperate times and desperate times call for desperate actions.

Take the time to view this video.  I was an adult man, a practicing pharmacist in 1968.  ”Where have all the flowers gone” is a protest song, an anti-war classic.  In 1968, it affected me profoundly.  In the 21st Century, it caused an icy shudder to vibrate done my spine.

I think of the young men and women who have been killed and maimed in Iraq,  Afghanistan and who knows where else.  But the prevalent image, for me,  is a pharmacist without the spark of possibilities in her eyes.   I can see her and smell her because I have worked right beside her for decades.  She does not groom herself as she did in the beginning.   That was when practicing pharmacy for her was brand and shiny new.  She still believed that she was going to make a difference.  She was going to make a difference.  Her hair was always fashionably done and shampooed regularly.  Her fragrance was an expensive Elizabeth Arden offer called “Green Tea”.

Her eyes were, indeed, bright and sparkling.   I loved working with her (all of them).  They were playful, fun and confident.  When it came time to make a judgment, they were all-business.

New pharmacists, as their careers geared up, knew, with equivocation, that they were the captains of the pharmacy ship.   I hated watching it happen, but I couldn’t miss it.

There came a point when they gave up.  They were like children who were beaten and abused for something a small as spilling the milk.  Women and men!  Their grooming.. well…something was different.   A degrading from the cutting edge to the dull edge.   Everything, almost, had changed from medical professional to a piece work factory worker.   Why buy new slacks?  The khakis I have been wearing for 6 months are fine.  Who cares anyway?  I just want to put in my hours and get the hell out of here alive.

It is the little things that make you cringe.  So many pharmacists have had the spirit beaten right out of them.  I mean beaten out of them.  Some of you can feel it in your shoulders.  Most of you can feel it in your psyche because you know that you are denying everything that you believed in.

I do not have to outline everything because that would be the epitome of redundancy.  You live it every day.  Nobody has to remind you.

So, what do you do now?  I have never advocated unionizing.   I was a member of the Retail Clerks International Association in the 1960s.  I benefited greatly.  Now, in May of 2013, I have changed my mind.

It is time to unionize.  I’m not talking about a sliver of the Restaurant Workers Union or a division of the Teamsters.  I am talking a real pharmacists union.  There already is one.  The Guild of Professional Pharmacists.   I can’t do this for you.  It is up to you.  One or more of you will have to contact the Guild and find out how you do this.  I do not believe that the process is difficult.  A bonus is that once you start the deal with the Department of Labor (I believe) they can’t retaliate.  Your ass is basically protected.

Now, let’s see if there are any Bad Asses willing to come out of hiding and get this shit done.

Let’s see if you are a pharmacist I can trust.   That is all I want to know.  Can I trust you and do you have a set of balls?

Jay Pee

I know that the script size has changed and I will try to find out why.

“The Drug Dealer is the woman.  Blonde, short.  She wears a white coat.  The name tag says “Doctor”.

“Doctor?  Of what?”

“Just get her down and cuffed.  Same goes for her assistant.”

A few weeks ago, before I gave up the ghost, I worked for a major chain.  We were told that our Schedule II orders would be monitored and the quantities may be changed.   Apparently, the DEA is getting scary, after us.   The huge majority of pain prescriptions are legitimate.  There is something very wrong here.

The DEA is behind ALL of this.  Because of what happened in Florida last year, everybody is in fear of losing their license … Wholesalers, Physicians, Pharmacies and Pharmacists.  It is a shame that the DEA has SO MUCH power and SO LITTLE medical and therapeutic knowledge.

I was told in February I had a “threshold”, but no one knew WHAT it was.  In March my CII order of Oxy 30 was HELD (I had to partial fill my clients to get through until my “reset date”) and I started to complain.  I went through a 3 hour audit on April 4th and on April 15th got a call from MXXXXXX SXXXXXX IXXXXXXXX Headquarters asking me to “take the MXXXXXXX SXXXXXXX sign down”.  I was informed that I should be very afraid of the DEA because I “had a target on my back”.

Whatever the gentleman who conducted the audit reported almost cost me my life’s passion and put 12 people out of work.  I have been told the contents of the audit are “confidential”.  My Attorney was not allowed to be present during the audit and wants to pursue this.

We have always had strict policies when it comes to filling CII’s, we only accept commercial insurance (NO CASH, NO DISCOUNT CARDS), we run everyone through the Rx Monitoring Program, we ask the prescribing Physician for a Diagnosis (not just an ICD-9 code, but DETAILED information), Treatment plan and a recent Drug Screen.  Yes, this is a lot of work, but it DOES WORK to eliminate the “frivolous” prescriptions. Not to mention the fact that my Interns and Techs are learning MTM.

I AM DOING MY JOB TO THE BEST OF MY ABILITY AND I STILL GET PUNISHED.  How do I explain that to the Students I precept?

I have stopped accepting any new chronic pain clients … this goes against everything I learned in school.  The Primary Care Physicians won’t prescribe pain medications (I even had an Oncologist tell me he won’t prescribe pain medication for his Stage IV Cancer patient), I’m guessing that goes against everything they learned in school as well.

We ALL need to get together and tell the DEA enough is enough.  There is a VERY EASY solution to this problem if someone would just listen …

Morning JP …

I received a phone call yesterday from Cxxxxxx Hxxxxx informing me that they would no longer be sending me any OXY 15 or 30mg … because I was four times over the National average on prescriptions for these drugs.  He refused to send me any information on those statistics, or even any confirmation that I had been shut off.

Last month I filled 22 OXY 30mg and ZERO OXY 15mg prescriptions.  Less than 4,500 tablets total, and NONE filled for cash … all insurance.

Please compare that with what you filled and tell me whether I’m filling FOUR TIMES more than you … better yet, if you don’t mind, pose the question on your website and let’s find out what the TRUE National average is.

This is WRONG and it’s going to cost me $300 per hour for an Attorney to prove I am in full compliance with the law.  I have never seen anything like this in my 30+ years in Pharmacy …

Thanks for listening,

Some of you will know immediately who this pharmacist is.  She did not indicate either way if I could include her name, so I chose to keep her anonymous.  I have not met a pharmacist with higher standards.   That is in 47 years in the drug store business, since my first job as a high school kid.   Our pharmacist most likely has the goods on this hospital.  Before pharmacy, her job was with OSHA.  She can navigate this territory, but we cannot leave her all alone.  At the very least, give her support.  I’d bet that she could use some high quality legal assistance.  Jay Pee

I find myself starting over yet again.  The hospital gig was going okay – well, until I pointed out to the pharmacy director their practice of receiving unwanted medications from the community was illegal in our state and the meds could not be sent to a reverse distributor (as they have been doing) because they would be considered waste.  I should have just reported it to the board of pharmacy and not said anything to the director, but I was trying to make sure we were compliant.  It was the right thing to do, but has cost me my job.  I was terminated on Friday.  I did report it to the board a couple of weeks ago when yet another person came to the pharmacy to drop off unwanted medications.  I even have an e-mail the director sent me indicating she sent the meds to a reverse distributor for destruction.

I was put in an impossible situation – no tech, working noon until midnight Friday/Saturday/Sunday – with only a couple months of actual training.  I was driving 2 hours daily roundtrip.  I was just a glorified data entry clerk/pharmacy tech – much less than I was promised.  None of the staff were ever really friendly and I didn’t get to really spend much time with other pharmacy staff.  So once I mentioned the unlawful practice, the director began a smear campaign of sorts — tracked every little error, questioned every decision I made, and encouraged nurses to complain about me.  So the reason given for my dismissal was poor performance.  She was not aware, however, that I had entered electronic interventions on errors I corrected that were input by other pharmacists – I was forbidden to keep paper documentation even though it was at the computer terminal inside the pharmacy.  I made no more errors than the veteran pharmacists – I can tell you, I have never been a poor performer.

She called me into HR yesterday.  I had never even met the HR guy and he didn’t want an introduction.  He asked me to sit down and proceeded to tell me my performance was poor and I was being terminated.  I was not allowed to go over anything and I was not asked to sign anything.  I was given a form to apply for unemployment benefits, walked to clean out my locker, and not allowed to speak to anyone.  I did have the satisfaction of telling them for the first time that the illegal practices in the pharmacy had been reported to the board of pharmacy.  Talked with inspector yesterday and she’ll be headed there in a week or so.

I really wanted this to work for me, but today I’m quite relieved in a way – humiliated, but relieved.  I’ve saved enough money in an emergency fund to last a year, but I don’t want to go without employment.  I’m taking a week off and then applying for everything and pounding the pavement and knocking on doors.  Because I had a regular schedule for the last 4 months, I’ve been able to lose 23 pounds and feel much better – still losing as a matter of fact.  Well, I haven’t been very hungry the last couple of days but that will pass.

Whistleblower, yep – but that’s not much help.  I’ve used an audio recorder for all these conversations.  I’m not hopeful any of this will help me.  I know I sleep okay.  I may not have a job, but I still have my pharmacy license.

It IS your party!  If it is turning out to be a stinker, it is your own damn fault.

No one, absolutely no one gets out if their dreams and expectations alive.  But, this is ridiculous.

You expected, at the very least, to be able to respect yourself.  If you are older, like me, there was a template to follow.  You noticed that the drug store owner had a following.  Customers liked him and came to him for advice.

Nowadays, it could not be worse… or could it?  They don’t care who you are, for the most part.  The national organization with the magical name (includes American) has done nothing to enhance pharmacy’s/pharmacist’s public image.  Pharma (before it became just too big) used to advertise how wonderful pharmacists were.  Remember when you were the most trusted professional?  More trusted than the clergy?   Pharma helped to promote that image-builder.  The APhA did absolutely nothing.  I believe that some of the state organizations ran local promotions. Not any more.

Most of us are decades away from pharmacy.  Most of us work in dispensaries.  The difference?  If you do not know, we are doomed.  Actually, you are doomed.  It really does make a difference to me, but if you aren’t willing to man the barricades to defend our profession it will not affect my life.  I am a Florida retired guy.  Remember that?  It has not changed.  However, I am a pharmacist.  I cannot run away.  I want to be proud of what we do, but it isn’t easy.  So many of you are so damaged that you would not behave in a professional manner if you had all the time in the world.  It is like we are all actors and the other players in this drama are all dead.  Big Evil went and burned down the theater.  Can you call what you do practicing pharmacy.  

Victoria and I left Galveston on the 8th of April.  The moving truck arrived at our place in Sarasota on the 10th.  We have been doing all of the moving stuff since, with plenty more to do.  There is a break, however.  Life is reasonably uncluttered.   I don’t feel guilty sitting down and writing this.  Comcast lit us up only 6 days ago.  I have been effectively absent from www.jimplagakis.com since the first week in April.  About three weeks.  There have been numerous messages to jpgakis@hotmail.com.  Many of the usual complainers.  A few sending me stories about Big Evil and Big Stupid.  It seems as if both of these companies are slipping the noose around their necks.  If the writers are actually keeping good records (including official company emails on policies and procedures) Evil and Stupid will take a big hit, probably sooner than later.

In three weeks, I was sent 3 stories of firings.  Each was a female pharmacist 40 years old or older.  They all worked for a chain.  Each of them had earned the maximum number of vacation days allowed.  Two were PICs.  The reasons for their firings were ridiculous.  If these companies fired every single RPh who made these chicken-shit errors,  most of the pharmacies these companies run would be closed most of the time.  All of these pharmacists report that they were replaced by twenty-something RPhs whose starting wage is less than what the fired women were making.  An important question is:  If three pharmacists reported their firing to Jay Pee, how many were fired who did not write to me?  Scary?  What are we going to do about it?

A young pharmacist who is an immigrant from the UK, on a limited VISA, was worried about his Big Stupid job.  His Pharmacy District Manager reprimanded him for refusing to refill an Rx because the patient was using the medicine in a manner not commensurate with dosage.   This pharmacist sought advice from Jay Pee and Pharmacist Steve.  He followed our advice.  Too lengthy a story to write specifics here, but suffice it to say the bottom line.  Big Stupid, at last report, offered him $7,000.00 to settle and promise to not sue them.  He is not sure what he is going to do, but indicated that he is leaning to refusing the offer and suing their ass from here to next January.

Pay attention to this:  He is offering to donate some of the money he will get to The Pharmacy Alliance as seed money for a fund to help out other pharmacists who find themselves in a battle with the Bigs.  TPA was pivotal in his search for a way to defend himself.  A second pharmacist sent an email to jpgakis@hotmail.com offering money for a fund to help defend pharmacists.

My question is:  Is it time for action like this?  Why do I want to spell U N I O N?

It is time for my break, Linda. Be back in an hour..

Victims give me a pain in the ass.  I don’t like people who dramatize their “victimness”.  I don’t like me when I act like a victim.  I have to tell myself, “Snap out of it.  This won’t get you shit.”

If your husband is an asshole and you married down, and you know it, face up to it and do something about it.  I believe that it would be best if you don’t have kids with this guy.  Just save your dignity and do not act like a victim.

That goes for you men, also.  I have been preaching for years, “You date the stripper.  You don’t marry the stripper.”  When your friends ask what work your wife did when you met her you, tell the truth.  It will help you to get out faster.  Claiming that your wife was a dance major is so much haw hee.  Save your dignity, man.

If you are used to getting pushed around at work, stop putting up with it.  The law is your trump card, play it.  We will be discontinuing Internet service on Thursday afternoon.  I’ll come back when we get lit up in Sarasota.  If it is taking too long, I can visit the local library.

Jay Pee In The Day. 1970s. This was on a trip to South Shore, Lake Tahoe. My days off were Sunday and Monday. A bad divorce and bad bills to pay so I was a reprobate, cigarette smoking, Stinger drinking blackjack player. I never gambled. I played the game right and NEVER went home on Monday night without at least $500 more in my pocket than when I drove up after work on Saturday.

Tomorrow, Tuesday 4/2/13, will be my last shift working in a pharmacy. I don’t know what to think of that. Getting off my feet is necessary. I was diagnosed with progressive post-polio muscular atrophy in 1987. I attended a few clinics, but felt like a fraud. Here were people my age in wheelchairs and using canes and crutches. Some of them wore braces. I felt as if everyone was staring at me because I was walking around with seemingly no ill effects. Subsequently, in 2007, I was told by a neurologist who did an electromyogram that I could not hurt myself by working. We were back in a corner laboratory. Him, me and an impressive array of computers. The doctor brewed coffee and we had a cup of laboratory Joe while he inserted 4 inch 18 gauge needles deep into my leg muscles. He had me flex the muscle, and then made notations into the computer. He answered two questions. Victoria had to know if I would ever need a wheelchair. A profound “No”. I had to know if I would hurt myself by working on my feet. “No. You can’t hurt yourself, but you will know when you better hang it up.” That moment came about 18 months ago, during a 1:30 PM to 10:00 PM shift. I came home and announced to my ever lovin’, “I can’t do this much longer”.

That much longer comes at 4:00 PM tomorrow afternoon. Why did I continue to work for 18 more months? We had a place in Sarasota, Florida in mind to be where we ended up. We pulled the trigger on a condo in our dream gated community on the day after Thanksgiving in 2011. It was the bottom of the real estate bubble. It was one half the asking price in 2005. V put some money into it, but it is our forever place. Well worth the investment.

I also continued to work because I enjoyed it. The company that I work for is huge. I get the impression that the separate districts are somewhat autonomous. I doubt if it is this was in every company pharmacy, but I always took a half hour meal break. A real one. I liked to go to Pho 18, a Vietnamese Noodle restaurant around the corner. An absolutely brilliant cup of coffee and a few spring rolls took the place of that ubiquitous Snickers bar and 20 ounce Diet Coke that costs the same as one share of stock of Big Stupid. I ran my personal lunch program. If I had errands or needed to get out a little early, I didn’t take a lunch that day. It is amazing how good a Big Grab of Fritos, a few handfuls of fun-size Kit-Kats taste when you do not have to have that kind of meal.

I was scheduled only to work two days (16 hours) a week. I did plenty of favors and put in extra shifts, but I was part time. I qualified for profit-sharing retirement and a company stock fund. I bailed out of both two weeks ago. I was in both of these for barely 4 years. V is having tile floors put into our condo as I write this. Our forever place remember. This company treated me very well.

It competes with Big Evil and Big Stupid so the Masters of the Universe get all hot and bothered by the usual money-losers. Following the $4.00 prescription jackass is the model. Gift cards for transfers. On and on. There are metrics, but
anyone with sense can handle the metrics.

We can handle all of the bullshit that is killing our industry, because we have to right now. Do not bitch and complain. Say you are going to do it with a smile. Then, do it if you can. There are opposing forces in the industry. There are people with power on our side. You, be a force for change. Did you ever give your kid that candy bar because he whined for it?

The best part of my job has been customer service. Rx counseling and OTC counseling. When I get an OTC question, I never leave it at, “Left side of aisle 9”.
I always go right out front and triage. They tell me their symptoms and, after a few questions, I recommend an OTC product, suggest that they better see a doctor or tell them, “Get your ass to the trauma center right now.” I would rather OTC counsel than Rx counsel. It is what I was trained to do in the 1960s. It was called Counter Prescribing. It was what druggists did. I am proud to be a druggist, man. Pharmacists who are willing to play the role of druggist save our nation billions of dollars a year. Because these people would go to emergency without your triage skills.

So, I am done. Man, I am so relieved. We will be in Sarasota by next Sunday. I will then spend an extended period of time being a retired Florida guy. I will wear short pants and tee shirts. I have a straw Panama hat that looks silly, but it shades my head. I will read a helluva lot, get a small tan and swim. We will eat good food. Drinking superior coffee and reading the papers in the morning cannot be beaten. A glass of wine or a finger of scotch whiskey with V, on our lanai, at sunset is a good way to wind the day down. I will do this until I do not want to do it anymore.

When I want to, I will be coming back and going full-frontal on the culture that has been ruining our business. There is a whole list of them. We can start with the MBA Bean-Counting Masters of the Universe. Continue with Big Evil and what they have done to denigrate an honorable profession. I will intend on being a player in the crusade to get the message that working conditions are killing people to the people with power. Think television investigative reporter.
I will expect you and every one you can get together to join me.

Pelican Cove