Ask a Pharmacist

We tend to have a natural skepticism toward drugs reps, but we really should be skeptical about the information and not make it personal with the rep…

I’ve known some pharmacists to be very abrupt with reps, considering them a bother, and generally not wanting to “waste” their time with them. Yes, in some instances when a drug rep randomly turns up, we might not have the time to see them. However, it is just good manners to acknowledge them and explain that you cannot speak to them right now but thank them for coming. Yes, they are just doing their job, they’re not doing you a special favor, but isn’t it nice when customers/patients thank us for our work?

You might say, well, we are helping customers/patients with their health etc so it’s expected for them to thank us – but isn’t helping them with their health our job anyway? So why are we entitled anymore to thanks than the rep is? Equally, I’m sure the rep, like we do, appreciates the occasional acknowledgment. I’ve known pharmacists to send an assistant or intern pharmacist out, either to say that the pharmacist is busy, or let the intern speak to the rep. The sending the assistant out part is pretty rude, and fortunately doesn’t happen too often, but sending the intern out is much the same as saying, I don’t have time for this, I’ll send junior out to keep up appearances. It’s a fine idea to send the intern out to chat and learn about the new medication, but the pharmacist should formally introduce him or her to the rep which gives them the chance to greet the rep.

I can understand the skepticism of the drug companies, and in some cases if the rep acts unprofessionally in any instance, but in the same way we dispense medications based on the fact we are informed they are safe and appropriate, similarly, they pass the information on to us that they are given, on the assumption that it is safe and appropriate. In most cases, the reps are like us, often with a respectable qualification in science or biochem, and are just doing their jobs. I’ve had some dealings with them in regard to very new medications where there wasn’t a whole lot of literature around for the issues I was investigating, and they went out of their way to get the information to me.

So, be nice, and not just because you like super cool pens.

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Tags: drug, drugs, help, information, medication, medications, pharmacist

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 1:20 pm and is filed under News Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.