Pharmacists, enjoy your 15 seconds of fame.

Enjoy may not be the most appropriate word. The recent New York Times article focused attention on pharmacists as it brought light to many of the concerns pharmacists have been discussing for years. Only, of course, in very safe places. We wouldn’t want to be the weak link in the chain that has many of us tied to large corporations, so we can’t share our concerns at work with “higher ups”. We may not even want to voice opinions with coworkers/colleagues because who knows who is a company man/woman/person and may use this against us? Job security has plummeted. So we don’t talk about concerns in contexts where it should be able to elicit change. But really, was anyone going to listen anyway?

The New York Times article aired many of our shared grievances and allowed us to publicly discuss our experiences and hopes for the future as a group. Many pharmacists are likely relieved that their own concerns were shared by others, and their frustrations are valid. Now we must wonder if the momentum will last. Can we use this as a springboard to make changes in community (not retail) pharmacy? Can we make community pharmacy a place where pharmacists want to practice, not where they have to work when they have no other options? There are patients who need community pharmacists. We need to create a system that aids us in caring for these patients and move away from a system that we stand in our way.