Tales Out Of School

This past weekend, the one pharmacy tech who was scheduled to work with the pharmacist called in sick, making me the only tech on staff by default. It wasn’t terrible, because, barring a few rushes, the weekends are pretty low-key at the adjacent clinics, one of which is welfare-run. Thus, we see a gamut of patients— everything from newborn infants in need of antibiotics to elderly people suffering dementia—and also in need of antibiotics.

Pharmacist A has been in practice for over thirty years. He’s a charming, funny man with a bone-dry sense of humor, and seems to know everyone that comes in. He has groupies, too—older women, some without a shred of self-awareness or acknowledgement that they are (for the most part) entirely physically unattractive—who bring him chocolates and coffee and cream puffs. He is warm and amiable to all, even the woman who changed her name to that of A’s wife and constantly asks him if he’s still married. I do get the impression he’s somewhat glad at times of a counter between him and his groupies, however.

He freely admits to me that he cultivates these odd, aging school-girl crushes for the food gifts. He obsesses about food. Thin as a rail, he eats constantly from the raw fruit and vegetables his wife packs for him, but he won’t turn away a box of Godiva chocolates or a carrot cake, either.

We get phoned-in refill orders. I take one for at least 25 prescriptions, all for one person. A glances at it, sighs. “Oh yes. Carol. Has it already been a month?” Her prescriptions, had she paid cash for them, would have cost her hundreds of dollars. On welfare, they cost her nothing. By the medications, I can see that she’s diabetic. “Does she need all of these medications? Maybe not. Probably not. But because she’s not paying anything, the doctors will prescribe her everything they can.”

I don’t know if this is true, but A says it with a kind of resigned weariness. He has at times the attitude of a soldier too long in the trenches—his humor is bleak, and he’s seen much. He’s kind to people, even the difficult patients and obvious drug-seekers—he allows one woman a 4-pill supply of a muscle relaxant, until her doctor can be contacted on Monday—and he knows all the doctors that are hard cases, and all the doctors that are pushovers.

He never blames the people—many of whom are really the down on their luck, at wit’s end, one step from homelessness sort—he blames the system. He has no suggestions as to how to fix it, or make it better. His main interest appears to be the patients themselves at the moment—how to take a giant Augmentin tablet, for example, or how best to get a fussy baby to swallow bitter antibiotic suspension.

It’s illuminating to see his way of handling the situations that arise. He neither glorifies nor repudiates the poor, or begrudges them help. He seems vastly, deeply, quietly angry at the paradox that exists: that in helping people, the system also sucks them into a vortex, that along with poor life choices and rotten luck can often spin some people out of all personal control—and at the eager will some of these people seem to have in pursuing their own bleak destinies.