OK, that may seem like a weird comparison, but let me explain why I think it is important. I'll use the community pharmacist as the example because most people in our profession would agree that community practice probably has the highest burnout rate for pharmacists.

Alright, so a short-order cook works with the public. He or she works with a menu. Customers order from the menu, and the cook prepares the food and feeds it to the customers in expectation of payment.

In a somewhat analogous situation, the retail community pharmacist works with the public. He or she works from a menu of orders. The customers, via their doctors, place orders. And the pharmacist dispenses the orders to the patients and expects to be paid.

So what is the difference between a short order cook and a pharmacist?

Obviously, there are quite a few in terms of educational background required and licensing requirements , but let me focus on a fundamental difference in the term of customer expectations.

When we head out to get a hamburger for dinner, we voluntarily go because we are hungry. We have the expectation of a fresh, hot and tasty hamburger. We expect to eat it and be done with it. We don't expect it to make us sick.

We have usually made lots of hamburgers ourselves at home and have a pretty good idea of what good hamburger is. And, if we like it, we may go back and get another one again next week. In addition, we don't have to be told how to eat a hamburger properly.

With a pharmacist, patients typically come to get prescriptions because they have to, not because they want to. They don't come to us to get prescriptions filled, they come to us to feel better. They have no idea what they really need to do in order to feel better. However, they expect their investment in medicine to help them either get well or avoid getting sick.

They typically have never filled a prescription at home themselves and have no real idea what a good prescription is. If we don't do a good job of explaining how to use their medicine, it may not work. Can you imagine a cook having to explain how to eat a hamburger? And if they don't understand how to use their medicine, they may never come back and get the next fill.

In essence, the production aspect of the two jobs is similar, but the qualitative demands on a successful outcome are wildly different.

The fundamental difference is that, as pharmacists, we are not solely trying to meet the needs of our patients but also trying to help them understand what their real needs are. This requires us to be perceptive, socially competent, communicative, empathetic and reassuring. It requires us to read between the lines and figure out the questions people aren't really informed enough to ask.

Customers come in one of three varieties:

  • ones who are highly informed about their disease and may actually know more about it than we do
  • ones who are highly misinformed about their disease and have made poor decisions based on this misinformation
  • ones who are so confused by all the conflicting information in the marketplace that they are paralyzed by this confusion and simply take no action

As pharmacists, we can't just prepare the order, hand it out and consider the job done.