Jim Plagakis, RPh
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Stop! You still have to check two prescription orders and that woman at the counter looks really angry...Harry A. is standing
in front of you, frowning. You stamped "See Pharmacist" on Mr. A's receipt and you can't even remember why. How can you be
expected to remember what happened this morning?..."I don't care if the telephone is for the pharmacist!" you squeal at the
technician...Coffee! You still have half a Thermos from the morning. The coffee is cold and tastes stale, but you hastily
drain a cup, dribbling some on your shirt...No, you don't know whether the beach chairs are on sale, and frankly, you don't
care..."The same to you, buddy!"...You stride over to the consultation window and repeat, for the third time, to the metronidazole
patient that the side effects include tolerable body aches and pains and a metallic taste in the mouth..."Don't take it then!"Going to the bathroom is priority ONE at this point. "I don't care if the doctor's line has been holding." You practically
trot to the bathroom and THE DOOR IS LOCKED. You do a little jig, holding it tightly, but, ARRRRRGHHH. By the time the mother
and her four children unlock the door, you...well...little accidents can happen.
Recently, I turned to the technician and said, "I'm all caught up. What is there for me to do?"
"Jim, you work like a madman and when you get a little break you want more work. What's wrong with you?" "I can't help it," I said. I was looking through the problem box for something to do. "This is the way I have always worked."
"It must be a pharmacist addiction. You all race like you'll get a whuppin' if you dare to slow down." She was laughing at
me. "Hurry up and wait," I said, still looking for something to do.
All occupations have intrinsic hazards. In an article in The New York Times, I read about a group in Buffalo who worked in the plants supplying pumped-up radioactive materials to the nuclear weapons
industry. This was in the 1950s; now they're getting sick with cancer. Because of poor record-keeping, some of them are not
able to take advantage of a medical program specifically designed for them. Some are just dying.
Pharmacists don't have to worry about glowing in the dark at night. Fifteen years ago, when you noticed the corpses piling
up, you did the hardest thing you have ever done. You quit smoking tobacco. You are a smart rat with your diet and you get
regular exercise. You even moved the family to the country to escape the nitrous oxide that spewed from the plant upwind from
the fashionable subdivision you thought was heaven.
Imagine this, Mister Ar Pee Aitch, you warned your co-workers: "America is too good at promoting death." You preached about
food additives, rush-hour traffic, and unprotected teen sex. In return, they gave you a nickname they only used behind your
back.
You may not glow, but you are probably unwell. Of the 230,000 pharmacists out there, I'd bet that 90 percent of them have
suffered from this condition at one time or another during their careers. It can be debilitating and dangerous. It can harm
marriages and relationships. Health can suffer. So why not address it? Because it is part of the job and too expensive to
recognize as a health issue.
We suffer stomach difficulties, hypertension, and other insidious troubles because of this problem. It is a thoroughly modern
ailment that, frankly, is not recognized as a source of trouble. It is probably the condition most prevalent among pharmacists.
There is a name for it. You can find it in numerous reference sources. Hurry sickness. A modern malady caused by constant rushing. A compulsion to do everything quickly, or a chronic feeling of being short of
time, attributed to the fast pace of modern life, which causes symptoms such as anxiety and insomnia. How about adding divorce, alcohol and drug abuse, adultery, depression, child neglect, and nervous collapse? A thoroughly
modern scourge, from which we all suffer. Think your insurance will cover treatment?
And we spent all of those years studying and preparing for a nice, comfortable life. Hurry sickness! How long are we going to stay stupid?
JIM PLAGAKIS is a community pharmacist in Galveston, Texas. You can e-mail him at jpgakis@hotmail.com
and cc us at drugtopics@advanstar.com
. You can also visit his Web site at http://jimplagakis.com/.
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