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| WALL-E, PharmD?: Rants and Musings of a Retail Pharmacist |
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by The Redheaded Pharmacist - October 3, 2011
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Provided by The Redheaded Pharmacist
Do you think that pharmacists could be replaced by robots in the near future? Is our line of work simply repetitive tasks that can be duplicated by a machine? If so how much longer can I expect to enjoy my career before the inevitable happens and I too am replaced by a machine?
Those are the kinds of questions I asked myself after reading this article from Slate magazine. But is the profession of pharmacy as we know it really at risk of becoming automated? Will pharmacists soon find themselves unemployed? I’d like to think no and I’ll be happy to explain why.
There can be no denying that computers and machines are becoming so integrated into our daily lives that we can barely fathom life without them. The power of the microchip, the internet, and automation is infiltrating many different industries and jobs. So why wouldn’t pharmacy also be on the “watch list” for potential takeover by machines?
Well, I’d like to consider myself a skilled and educated professional. There’s a bit more to community pharmacy (or pharmacy in general) than simply putting medications in bottles. But public perception would indicate our jobs are simple and almost mindless. Give patients a robot and a drug interactions book and they think we aren’t needed anymore.
The Slate article talks about the UCSF Medical Center’s robot they’ve implemented. After reading about how well it works you’d think I’d be unemployed along with most of the rest of the pharmacy school graduates in this country already. But somehow I’m still waking up to a long shift in store for me today.
The article argues that pharmacy is simply a repetitive task: filling one prescription after another. As if we work in a bubble where nothing goes wrong with any community pharmacy Rx or hospital order? MDs send us prescriptions and we fill them. Hmmm, that does sound simple enough for a robot to handle right? But then there are those pesky problems that surface. Those things change everything in my mind.
Let me think back to a couple of problem’s I’ve seen at work recently. Hey, Mrs. Jones is on Line 1. She has pink pills this month and they’ve quote “always been white before.” I guess her medication is one of the several hundred products that have changed manufacturers in recent memory and she’s concerned her pills aren’t right even if there is a hunter green sticker on the bottle telling her that very fact. Hey WALL-E, could you get Line 1 for me?
On no, Mr. Johnson’s insurance doesn’t want to pay for his Celebrex prescription. Medco requires a prior authorization for Celebrex prescriptions. They’d much rather pay for Mobic or Naproxen instead. Well WALL-E, stop stickering that bottle and handle that insurance reject will you? Man, WALL-E doesn’t even complain about no lunch breaks!
Mrs. Thompson has been taking warfarin for a while now. Her dose is strange: 1mg everyday but Mondays and Fridays. On those days she is to take 1 & 1/2 tablets daily. But wait, her doctor just e-scribed a prescription for warfarin 1 mg tablets with the directions of two tablets by mouth daily. That isn’t right is it? The patient says no. What do we do WALL-E?
And who could forget Ms. Temple. She says she’s going on vacation and she needs her Valium prescription filled exactly 11 days early. Last month she had a funeral to attend. She’s a habitual early refill request patient. Better handle her first WALL-E. She doesn’t like to wait on the phone! And I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news WALL-E but it is 7:30PM and her doctor’s office is closed.
Forgive me if I find it hard to believe a robot will do all that for me and still help an old lady with exactly 18 questions about stool softeners. And I didn’t even talk about other functions of pharmacists like compounding, dose adjustment calculations, answering clinical questions, and of course flu shot administration. If we really are at risk of being replaced by machines then the position of pharmacist has been marginalized to the point where we don’t matter anyway.
Pharmacists everywhere have a couple of challenges that we all must meet. We must demonstrate our value to the healthcare system or risk having our profession become a memory. We must branch out from our traditional dispensing roles no matter what our practice setting might be simply to prove our value. And we must educate.
Some pharmacists have great faith in medication therapy management functions and their potential. The expanded roles and new areas of practice we could be pursuing offer opportunities to not only survive in a technologically dominant world but also excel and succeed in it. But if we cling to functions like medication dispensing or legislation that requires our presence in a pharmacy then we are all doomed to be unemployed and sitting around talking about “the good old days!”
I for one think that the profession of pharmacy is at a crossroads right now. We can hang onto to dispensing functions like the life preserver it has always been for us. Or we can learn to swim towards a new paradise of opportunity. What will we decide? Or more accurately, which way will we be guided during the coming change if we don’t take action ourselves?
Maybe I was too harsh picking on the lovable Pixar character WALL-E to prove my point about robots and technology? I liked that movie and I’m sure WALL-E would be a blast to have working with me in the pharmacy. But if you don’t want him to be a prototype of the machine that will replace you real soon we’d better figure out a viable way to ensure our own survival.
How about a little public education related to what pharmacists really do for patients? How about broadening our scope of practice in some new and exciting way? I’d settle for a group of pharmacists that would stand up for something! Why not? Otherwise, it really could be WALL-E, PharmD standing behind the counter at your local pharmacy soon. I wonder if Mrs. Jones is still holding on Line 1? Hey WALL-E, pick up Line 1 and say that her call is important. She’ll like that. OK, that was wrong wasn’t it?
The Redheaded Pharmacist
The Redheaded Pharmacist has been working full time in retail pharmacy for more than a decade. He is in his mid 30s, and, yes, he has red hair.
Disclaimer: This blog represents the opinions of the author and the author alone. It does not represent any pharmacy group or organization. I also will leave out or change the names of patients/customers to protect their privacy and comply with government regulations regarding patient privacy rights and personal information.
The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.
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