The light bulb question:
How many pharmacist it takes to change one light bulb?
You may say just one, or it may just takes as many as 3, or maybe a thousand.
Any figures, but the whole point is to make the place brighter. Or at least, SEEM brighter.
So it seems. But what if there is some blind people in the place? What about the visually-impaired? Worst is… what if some people in the place “deliberately” have their shades on? Then, there is only a number of people will be grateful having the light back on.
My case? Already, in my flat, 3 out of 4 pharmacy students decided once upon a time ago to take up this course to get the license to open a pharmacy and let it managed by someone to just get the income. I wonder, does it happen the same amongst.. say, the engineering students? You get your degree and then.. what? Teach a drop-out how to fix some mechanical toy, make him fix more mechanical toys for other kids while charging them (or rather, their parents) impossible fees and then retire young? How about the law-students? The moment you have your degree and you will probably practice in court once or twice and voila, open a solicitor office and hire a few newbies to serve the community? Accountants? Teach a coupl’a clerks to do the tallying and next day build up a pseudo-Ernst&Young to hire more of the same capable clerks to do the same while sitting back making calls to old buddies to chat about how run-down the economy is today?
Nah, i am not mocking anyone. Really, if anyone thinks the previous paragraph was an insult to any profession you might be partaking in the future or probably are right now, the real pointer is on me and my fellows. The fact that pharmacy graduates have the luxury of using the license they own rightly to open a pharmacy (that includes selling out prescription-only drugs and poisons) due to the degree they have, this may also mean alot of them take advantage of it to actually “bid” these licences out to business-persons that would want to earn from the pharmaceuticals. And honestly, it is a BIG business out there. Check out the Mercks, Boots, GSK.. bla bla bla, other giant pharmaceutical companies and you will know how big they can get. When asked, “why not do something with the system back home to somehow follow the NHS system, where all health professionals are indeed ‘professionally’ involved in healthcare?” the respond: “how caaaaan? See our Malaysia like dat, how to dooo? No need lah, open the pharmacy and just earn back the degree I have paid for lor.”
So, if EVERY person in this whole flat I am currently living in think the same and giving the same respond, is it not even much further that we have to go through to actually improve our healthcare system to an extend where every healthcare professional do have a role to play (yes, that includes nurses back home) when providing health services? I am not bringing up on how to get the”blind” to come into the pharmacies for advice. Heck, I am not even coming up on how to establish our status as yes-we-are-pharmacists-and-we-do-not-only-dispense-drugs-but-we-offer-healthcare-advices-too-*smiles* to the “visually impaired” yet, mind you. Just perhaps to begin reminding the “shades-on people” that we are the upcoming healthcare providers who also had to go to a Pharmacy School “to save people”. So, here I am.. wondering… why do colleagues i have as such, actually took the trouble getting themselves here, studying the ethicals and pharmacology and in the end just to get big bucks, while seeing the whole NHS system first-handedly. Wouldn’t it be easier to just study management which is relatively cheaper and the end-agenda is still the same?
Oh well, such is life. It takes shit loads of time to comprehend what the future installs for us. Everyone thinks that someone will do something someday. As i can almost hear that again, “Ayaa! Why worry so much? One day someone will do it one la, hor? So wait for that day to happen lorrrr…!”
“Ok!”
Oh well, that is the reality of things in our side. Surely there will be some people out there who might not have much passion in what they study, but instead are using it as a gateway for money-making. It’s quite clear that quite a few of us enter pharmacy with the intention of striking it rich. If you had any experience with seniors selling their wares to juniors before returning to Malaysia, you’ll come up with the same conclusion.
But I also happen to know a few of our colleagues who do give a rat’s ass about the profession.There are those who are intent on raising healthcare standards, providing services to customers, raising the awareness to the professional role of the pharmacist.
I have to agree with you on the argument that if their ultimate goal was to open a business, why limit your opportunities only to pharmacy and go through the 8 gruelling semesters? My brother studied business cos he felt it gave him the freedom to enter any line of business he wanted, and true enough that happened.
Honestly I am slightly concerned about how people in our line of work don’t seem to get that they themselves are instrumental in affecting the future. It’s because so many people’s mindsets are stuck on waiting for ’someone else to do the job’, that at the end of the day nothing changes.
So my take on the light bulb question: Any pharmacist would be able to change the lightbulb. But some may only do it for a charge.
crayon, on 4-20-2006 @ 1:55 am |