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Layered Pharmacy Leadership

Blogs

  • 9/5/2023

    The new pharmacy sweet spot

    In an era when pharmacy scope of practice is changing rapidly and we venture out into new practice models, we may feel insecure at first. Perhaps the first few times we administer subcutaneous injections or prescribe antibiotics without a physician we will feel out of place. In these moments we must develop new beliefs, new confidence and a willingness to have flexible convictions as we practise deeper.
  • 8/29/2023

    Pharmacists have teleprompters for brains (revisited)

    All pharmacists have at least one thing in common: we passed a few multiple-choice exams. Remember when your classmate said he would know the answer when he saw it listed in the options? He was right. And this was the first clue that pharmacists have teleprompter brains.
  • 8/22/2023

    What if you hire the wrong people in your pharmacy?

    Once we invest (or waste) time doing (or not doing) something, we do not get it back. Staffing your pharmacy is much the same, since time spent recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, training and support a new employee will never be given back. Thus, bringing on the wrong person comes with significant costs.
  • 8/15/2023

    The unfortunate truth: every pharmacy staff member is replaceable

    This sounds harsh, but it often goes unrecognized so here it is straight: no matter what your pharmacy role is, you are replaceable. While you may not imagine that someone else is capable of taking over your job, there is. If you think your exit from your pharmacy will result in its closing, you are wrong.
  • 8/7/2023

    Accepting bad news in your pharmacy

    Bad news is confrontational. We hesitate to disrupt homeostasis because we are afraid of the negative emotions it will cause others and ourselves. The imagined response in anticipation of our inflammatory reaction makes others procrastinate. What if there were a way to force bad news from coming out before it is too late?
  • 8/1/2023

    Is your pharmacy staff high maintenance?

    Do you have a friend with repeated car problems or perhaps own a car like this yourself? That car ends up costing you time and money repeatedly and the frustration has you thinking about a new vehicle. That car is high maintenance. In thinking about your pharmacy team, do you have high maintenance staff members?
  • 7/25/2023

    The second opinion: the art of changing your pharmacy-boss mind

    It is the boss’s job to filter the conversations of the workplace and make informed decisions. The hardest part of being the pharmacy decision-maker comes in the times we are wrong. When that happens, do you have the guts to change your mind?
  • 7/18/2023

    What Goldilocks teaches us about difficult pharmacy work

    You know the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Remember the porridge that was just the right temperature and the bed that was just the right softness? The same goes for the work you give your pharmacy staff: they need to be challenged, without drowning or coasting.
  • 7/4/2023

    Thick skin: how not to take patient feedback personally

    As part of the duties of being a pharmacist, our job involves helping people when they are not at their best. Empathetically recognizing that they carry burdens with their visits to see us is the first step to being the helper (as bystander) instead of a combatant fighting against them.
  • 6/20/2023

    3 reasons pharmacists are lonely

    There seems no reprieve to the pharmacist’s daily battles, let alone carrying the weight of nurturing a high-volume prescription count, staff that need plenty of attention and keeping an eye on a business that depends on a ton of moving parts.
  • 6/20/2023

    Letting the phone ring can be good customer service in pharmacy

    While a pharmacist is counselling a patient in-person, would it be appropriate for them to stop to answer the phone? Would we expect this of a surgeon or a plumber? Then why do we have to stop what we are doing mid-thought to answer the phone in the first two or three rings for the sake of good customer service?
  • 6/13/2023

    Pharmacists, firefighters and architects: which one are you?

    Some urgent moments of pharmacy involve getting prescriptions filled, managing wait times and dealing with due dates like order cut-off times, answering phones and patient line-ups. While this urgent work needs to be done, it does not offer much by way of making the pharmacy operate more efficiently or being ready for the future.
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