Talk:Pharmacy

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I removed the following:

Examples of retailers that include a pharmacy are:

Their inclusion makes the article contents excessively Americocentric. Unless retailers worldwide are named as examples (producing IMHO a pointless and extremely long list of names), retailers should not be used at all. Wiki is not simply an American encyclopædia but a worldwide one and so cannot simply list American stores unique to America as examples. FearÉIREANN 04:51, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I concur (and I'm American). Colocation of pharmacies with other distinct types of retailers is very common in America and listing them would inflate this page (or any list of pharmacies) to a ridiculous size. --Coolcaesar 04:27, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

I also concur. Right on!!

Druggist and drugstore redirect here. Is it worth mentioning them in the article? --Henrygb 14:17, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Drugstore no longer redirects here, I've made it a disambiguation page. However, I think it is definitely worth mentioning the term in this article. --Batneil 20:54, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
In fact, this article doesn't really cover drugstores in the general meaning of the word; I think a new article is probably called for. I had updated a few drugstore links to point here, but on reflection I don't think that's really appropriate. --Batneil 21:05, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Vandalism

This page seems to be the subject of quite a lot of vandalism of late, I've requested that it be locked for a while. There don't seem to have been that many legitimate edits recently, so we can probably afford to block edits until the vandal(s) lose interest. --Batneil 11:39, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Compounding

I would love to see something on here about compounding pharmacists and exactly what they do, and what their current role is in US pharmaceutical practice, becaue I don't know anything about it.

ZacharyS 00:25, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur. All I know is that pharmacists used to compound everything on demand according to a doctor's prescription. But then starting in the early 20th century, Big Pharma gradually started manufacturing ready-to-take drugs in the form of pills and sprays, so that most pharmacists have been reduced to pill-counters. --Coolcaesar 22:10, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

In Australia compounding is necessary only relatively rarely in most community pharmacies. One prescription in about 500-1000 requires compounding. The most common compounding is preparing creams written by dermatologists. Varoius solid powder ingredients (eg. salicylic acid) or liquid ingredients (eg. coal tar solution) are measured and added to a ready-made base cream. Other examples are mixtures and making creams from combining water with some type of oily phase. Many pharmacists feel that compounding takes a long time and is poorly remunerated.

Some pharmacies set themselves up as specialty compounding pharmacies. They have a wider variety of ingredients available and become known to various doctors who like to prescribe unusual items that are not available ready-made.

We don't "count pills" in Australia either. The NHS covers standard pack sizes that come ready from the manufacturers.

Also pills refer to an obsolete dosage form in Australia. It was one of the things that pharmacists used to make decades ago by rolling a pill mass into a long thin cylinder and cutting it into small pieces. Compressed tablets (aka tablets) and capsules have replaced pills as more accurate forms and are more easily absorbed by the body.

StevenNicole93 12:55, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sign of pharmacy

Is it symbol of pharmacy? What does the scales mean? --Snek01 18:42, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


It looks like a pharmacy symbol to me. The scales are those which have historically been and currently are used to weigh ingredients for compounding. StevenNicole93 12:45, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dispensing Seperation

I have added some futher information about the fight for seperation in Asia. Does anyone have any comments regarding this? Slann 09:12, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remove Professional Organisations?

The list of Professional Organisations seems excessive and I don't think helps the article. Does anyone object to their removal? -- Barrylb 09:28, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it clutters up the article, but it shouldn't be deleted entirely. Why not move it to something like List of professional pharmacy organizations or perhaps just Pharmacy organizations?
There... done: List of pharmacy associations - Epastore 17:46, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Does anybody know the reason behind the different approach to pharmacies in Europe and in U.S.? In Europe (at least in most countries, I am a Czech), one comes to a pharmacy with a prescription and usually gets the thing within a minute or so (packaged by the producer). In U.S. one has to wait 15-20 min to get the medicine packaged in a packaging of the pharmacy. To me the latter seems inconvenient and dangerous - the human pharmacist is more error prone than the machine at the pharmaceutical company. There must be some reason that I do not see.

  • This is because pharmacists in the US want to make US$100,000 a year (they really do make that much!) counting pills. Cognitive services my arse.
  • In the UK the NHS it normally takes 10-20mins for a prescription this is for three reasons mostly:
  • 1. The bulk of work comes in all at the same time and Pharmacies already very busy.
  • 2. To clinically check a prescription to make sure it is safe takes time adding to the wait - I wonder to what level other countries clinically check prescriptions??
  • 3. The NHS only pays the pharmacy for what the prescription asks for, so if it is for 30 tablets and the box is of 28 the pharmacist has to get his scissors out, wasting everyones time and increasing risk.
  • re: "cognitive services my arse" - pharmacists are not paid to count pills but to decrease risk - what ever they get paid they save their respective health services a fortune, if only becuase nurses and doctors are terrible at making dispensing mistakes... --Lethaniol 18:41, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dispensing vs prescribing

I just wanted to suggest adding something to the dispensing vs prescribing section. In Alberta, Canada pharmacists have been given precscribing rights for two reasons: 1. to make corrections to prescriptions (dose, frequency, route etc.) and 2. to initiate therapy if they feel it is a life threatening matter (is peron comes in with very high blood pressure the pharmacist could start blood pressure medication), then send the patient to see a Dr. Here is my source: https://pharmacists.ab.ca/downloads/documentloader.aspx?id=3782 This is currently revolutionizing the way pharmacists are perceived in Canada.

Elsewhere in Canada pharmacists have the right to prescribe emergency contraception (also known as the abortion pill or PlanB) as well.--24.85.244.32 08:07, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Downside of Pharmacist Work

1) Prolonged Standing 2) Long Hours 3) Inadequate or no relief help 4) Poorly written presciptions which increase likelihood of dispensing errors. 5) Armed Robbery 6) Frequently, the information for the pharmacist to trust is not true regarding the properties of the drugs. For someone who spends 5 or 6 years in scientific study there is probably no other profession where what one takes for knowledge is in reality marketing ploys. 7) Theft by other personnel of pharmacy stock to which the pharmacist is at risk of criminal prosecution. 8) There is no uniform standard to evaluate fairly the error rates by pharmacists, therefore it has/is a management tool to terminate employees rather than a protective mechanism for the public. 9) Uncertainty as to the market for pharmacists. Changing the entry level degree in the United States from a 5 year to a 6 year program decreased the availability of pharmacists, which tended to increase the error rates, that justifies automated pharmacies to replace pharmacists.

[edit] Vandalism

I recently replaced blatant advertising that had been inserted into the future of pharmacy heading. does this happen ofter?--Cheatcakes 08:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

what is the history of pharmacists and phsrmacy?

1) What's a pharmaculist?

2) Pharmacists are incomplete without four things:

  A) Product
  B) Customers (call them patients if you insist)
  C) Profit
  D) Government regulation up the wazoo  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phantomofroute66 (talk • contribs) 13:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pharmacy symbols

I should like to say that at least in Portugal we use another symbol to identify many things related to pharmacy. It is very common to see a palm tree with a snake wrapped around it, similar to the asclepius rod, in the pharmacies around the country. For example, we can see it in the official site of some portuguese associations of pharmacists, like ordem dos farmacêuticos or ANF, or sindicato dos farmacêuticos. Couldn't you add it to the lists of symbols? Riacrdo 22:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mail-order pharmacy

I believe the section "Internet pharmacy" should be retitled and reworked as "mail-order pharmacy". Mail-order pharmacy is a common industry term (frequently referenced by health insurance plans) that encompasses Internet pharmacy; they provide the same services, only with a more generic interface. The important aspect that sets this category of pharmacy apart is the lack of direct customer interaction and direct shipping of medication. Comments? -Verdatum (talk) 17:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Green Cross

It seems to me this is common in a lot of other countries besides the UK, France, and Argentina. I've added Spain (see http://www.buscaprof.es/farmacias/s+c+de+tenerife/844-41-0-0-0/ ; the Spanish Wikipedia article also cites the green cross as cross in France and Spain) and http://www.investinwallonia.be/ofi-belgium/investir-en-wallonie/vivre-en-wallonie/sante.php ("the pharmacies in Belgium are easily recognised their green cross signs"). I suspect there are also many other countries where the green cross is common, but I haven't been able to establish what the full list would be. In Chile there's a chain called Farmacias Cruz Verde, but perhaps their green cross is specific to their branding rather than generic to pharmacies, I'm not sure. 81.129.130.183 (talk) 13:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)