Book a time to chat

The Community Pharmacist Blog

Pharmacy shelves_blurred_wide

How We Can All Make A Difference in the Community Pharmacy World?

Posted by Benjamin Coakley on Thu, Jul 16, 2015 @ 09:28 AM


MH900442237

The numbers in community pharmacy can be staggering when you look at them. Below are just some examples of the large numbers associated with community pharmacy. 

 

  1.        23,000 - approximate number of community pharmacies in existence
  2.        $90 Billion - approximate size of the marketplace for independent pharmacies
  3.        220,000 - approximate number of full time employees employed by independent pharmacies

 

 Making a difference when you look at these numbers seems harder than raising the Titanic.  It's easy to see why people get frustrated and tell us they have quit trying to make a difference. This frustration in our opinion comes from us thinking too big. I am going to share a personal story that will help put this in perspective.

 

 I graduated with honors from Clemson University in 2000 with a B.S. Degree in Marketing (my teammates at Waypoint like to tease me about the B.S. part). I was so proud of the fact that I graduated with honors that I thought I could change the world. I knew that I could change the world because I had convinced myself that I was that important to the world. I tried so hard to be everything to everyone, and to solve everyone's problems, that I never realized that once I cleared what was on my plate, life was going to give me another plateful. And the new platefuls were often much larger than the previous ones. Unlike this year's triple crown winner American Pharaoh, I completely ran out of steam several years after I graduated. I realized that it was not going to possible for me to change the world and subsequently sank into an abyss of despair. 

 

It all changed one day when I had a conversation with my father. I told him how unsuccessful I had been with this whole changing the world concept. He said that he thought the same way I did when he was my age. He then said something I will never forget. He said, "Son, quit trying to change the entire world and start trying to change your little corner of the world." In other words, stop thinking so big and start doing little things that will make a difference. 

 

I feel that this is where we are in community pharmacy. We need to stop thinking about these grand gestures all the time and start thinking about the actual things we can do that will make a difference one patient, community, employee, and family at a time. If we all do this, then the sum of our work will result in the grand gesture of community pharmacy surviving another generation. 

 

This is one of the reasons that we make all our advisors available at any time to speak with any group of pharmacy students or young pharmacists that are interested in ownership. We are going to be doing this again at the NCPA Convention in Washington, D.C. this year. If you are a student, or young pharmacist interested in owning a pharmacy, I would encourage you to attend the convention this year. 

 

We have a challenge for all of you that read this. We want each of you to start doing one thing every day that champion the cause of independent pharmacy (i.e. tell a patient how your pharmacy positively impacts your community, help an elderly patient carry his/her purchases to the car, etc.) Please come back to this blog post and write what you have done in the comments section because we want to see the impact that you can make on your little corner of the world. Also, please tell one other colleague about this challenge and have him or her tell one other colleague. 

 

Thank you for reading this blog and we hope and pray that we all can make the difference that results in the long term success for independent community pharmacy.

The Positively Pharmacist Project