Pharmacy Issues & Resolutions Report

This report addresses several critical issues within the pharmacy sector. It highlights drug shortages leading to customer dissatisfaction, the influence of vendor push sales on medication choices, the sale of over-the-counter medicines without prescriptions, inconsistencies in drug quality and packaging, variations in pharmacy practices and qualifications, inadequate customer service, and the potential misuse of pharmacist data in research and development. The report emphasizes the need for improved inventory management, stricter regulations on sales practices, enhanced pharmacist training and accountability, and better quality control measures to ensure patient safety and trust in the healthcare system. The author calls for increased oversight and enforcement of existing regulations to address these issues and improve the overall quality of pharmacy services.

[Your Name]
[Address]
[City, State, Zip]
[27th November 2016]
The Honorable Richard Burr
United States Senate
217 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Re: Pharmacy-related issue & request for resolutions.
Dear Senator Burr,
I am a pharmacy student at [School Name]. I am writing to in regards to recent pharmacy-
related issues faced & we request for resolutions at the earliest.
As a constituent of yours, I hope that you will consider some of the key issues which I would
like to address & would like to bring it to your notice. Sometimes there is a shortage of drugs
in the hospital & vicinity because of which there is a long-lasting customer queue
which are continuously demanding regular drugs. Even though pharmacy employees keep a
list of records of regularly demanded drugs & injections, still, there is a supply shortage due
to vendor mismanagement or sometimes due to the pharmacy staff not been efficient in
updating the list on regular basis or ordering it on time. Due to complete mismanagement &
efficiency, it results in chaos & customer dissatisfaction. This should be addressed on an
immediate basis as taking care of customers or patients is also a responsibility of the
pharmacy. Such experiences lead to the loss of trust & faith from the medical care.
We also noticed that pharmacy staff supports specific drugs more due to the push sales from
the back end vendors giving them commissions & incentives in promoting it. Majorly on
routine schedule time, it was noticed pharmacy staff even though specific drugs are available

in the shop still they decline to give it & give other cheap quality inferior medicines due to
push sales from drug vendors. Customers may or may take pharmacy staff replaced drugs
again leading to dissatisfaction. This should be continuously monitored by the authorities &
checkpoints should be adhered by pharmacists.
Over the counter medicines are sold even without verifying prescriptions. Sometimes,
chemist simply gives customer requested medicines without even giving unbiased
suggestions related to medicines. Sometimes, it’s noticed customers don’t even visit doctors
& take trust pharmacy staff advice blindly. One should keep a tab about such unprescribed
medicines sold to customers & should always provide unbiased suggestions. Selling such
discounted & promoted medicines to customers without even verifying from the authorities
may lead to uncontrolled damages in patients.
Additionally, sometimes there is a change of packaging & or vendor providing inferior
quality drug with similar names. A pharmacy staff should verify each & every drug supplied
thoroughly before selling it off to the customers. For e.g. it was once noticed that solution in
the Vitamin D3 was diluted with some cheap solution. Giving it to children or used by adults
without even checking such solutions can lead to life damaging effects.
It was also noticed from the experience that pharmacists do not have a uniformity of
pharmacy practices. Some pharmacists are not even qualified to run OTC shops. At least
uniformity to open a counter they should have minimum qualifications & proper license
should be issued, verified by the state or government regulated boards. Incase if the
pharmacists are not following board rules & regulation strict actions should be taken which
includes cancellation of license or debarring from practicing.
It was also observed some pharmacists do not service customers properly. Since pharmacists
is also a white collar & responsible job hence staffing, training & development should be an

integral part. Serving the customers with full responsibility & accountability should come
naturally to pharmacists.
Some pharmacists also play a vital role in the research & development of the drugs & help in
providing data to the competitors. In order to have better-developed drugs which could
provide effective results, some doctors, organization considers data from pharmacists who
help them in developing a fine tune drugs.
Since pharmacists play an important role in bridging the gap between hospitals, drugs
dealers, doctors & intensive patient care. Hence, pharmacists should be well trained,
qualified, vigilant in their approach towards customer & incase of any red alerts from vendor
drug dealer side should very well notify the authorities. Everything from prescription to
customer database, bill receipts, medicines ordered (including expiry dates) & every other
minute details should be documented & recorded for the future purposes.
It will be very appreciative if you could take out time & could consider some of the issues &
challenges addressed here. Incase of any queries or any issues, you may personally contact
me on my number or mail me, I would be happy clarifying it.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Title]
[Organization]

Reference list
Westberg, S. M., & Sorensen, T. D. (2005). Pharmacy-related health disparities experienced
by non–English-speaking patients: impact of pharmaceutical care. Journal of the American
Pharmacists Association, 45(1), 48-54.
Burleson, K. W. (2015). Review of computer applications in institutional pharmacy--1975-
1981. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 39(1), 53-70.
Kocurek, B. (2009). Promoting medication adherence in older adults… and the rest of
us. Diabetes Spectrum, 22(2), 80-84.