Y’know, here's something I have been ruminating on for a while. The NHL strike is over, players are back playing, and we’ve all talked about how a bunch of rich people have been fighting over their share of the money generated by the business of sport. They fought over who should get what percentage, and what funds that percentage was of – gate receipts, TV money, concessions, marketing, and image. It seemed like a complicated conversation, but the more I think about it, the more I realize this is a lot like where pharmacists find themselves.The owners of pharmacies are often corporations (like hockey teams like the Leafs) but are also sometimes individuals. The players they hire are the pharmacists who actually do the work that patients come to experience, and the environment is in the different kinds of community pharmacy that they practice, and play, in. The thing is, the conversation about who gets what share of what revenue has never happened. Doctors and dentists and lawyers and accountants all get to know the revenue generated by their practice, and negotiate a share. Pharmacists have just taken the owner’s word that the amount is right.Shouldn’t we have this conversation?We don’t even know the true amount generated (the real amount, not the accountant stuff like, y’know, Al Capone’s “official” accounting book and then the real book, on The Untouchables) in order to talk about it. And like concessions and TV money, there are the other things pharmacies sell besides prescriptions (OTCs and the like that can only be sold where there’s a pharmacist on duty), or the image of a trusted pharmacist in marketing the business, or even how people come to see a particular pharmacist because, well, he or she is their favourite pharmacist: all of these are part of the pie the pharmacist should share in.How do we get that conversation started? I suspect the owners won’t want to talk, just like what happened when Terrible Ted Lindsay and the boys tried to take on the hockey owners. They may say pharmacists should know their place and take what they get. They will probably lament how hard things are. They certainly will complain about decreasing margins and profitability.And maybe they are right. Things are tough (although, not so tough as to stop them from expanding—even the NHL has stopped expanding, for now). But the NHL developed a partnership with the players, albeit with some discomfort. The league needs talent, the players someplace to play. Pharmacies need pharmacists, and pharmacists need somewhere to work (although, technically, they could work anywhere). The problem is that the conversation has never happened.The right number is there somewhere. I have a feeling it’s somewhere north of where it currently is for pharmacists.Hey, they wanted me in electronic media so everyone could share their comments and their thoughts. Do you think this is a conversation that should start? Feel free to comment, and I will be back next month to stir the pot some more.Ken Burns is a pharmacist at the Diabetes Care Centre at Sudbury Regional Hospital and, most definitely, a pot-stirrer.
