THE PENCAK REPORT
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Communication
It’s been awhile since I’ve mailed out a Pencak Report, but it is time. If you haven’t been to my website, www.pharmacylawpro.com you have probably been missing out on a lot of blogs. I encourage you to visit the website because I am able to blog more frequently than mail the paper newsletter. This Pencak Report is unique because it is dedicated to a central idea…communication.
It is no secret that the profession of pharmacy is rapidly changing. Robots manipulate the physical dispensing of medication and pharmacists use monitors to remotely view prescriptions. My personal research suggests that within a decade there will be a partial elimination of drugs themselves. Yes, less tablets, capsules, injections, etc.
Right now we use insulin for example, to augment a diabetic’s own endogenous secretions of insulin. In other instances, we take psychotropic medications to chemically modulate neurotransmitters such as serotonin, etc. The next step is to directly influence the brain and organs such as the heart or pancreas, by using direct electrical or radio wave stimulation. I began to research this concept after a discussion with a client/pharmacist who had a Spinal Cord Stimulation System (SCS) implanted to electronically block pain messages from reaching his brain. He was using opiates to relieve unremitting pain. As you know opiate analgesics are believed to bind with specific receptors found mainly in the CNS. He told me that the electronic interference was as effective to him as the opiates were. The larger point is that pain is only one condition that is treatable electronically. If you ponder the implications you will soon think of other organs and conditions that could be electronically stimulated or suppressed. The CNS is a bioelectric system, yes?
If and when, electronics, stem cell manipulation and nanotechnology become common, what is the role of a pharmacist then? Pharmacists will survive by what they do now that they don’t consciously realize. Pharmacists communicate for a living.
This entire issue on communication has been inspired by my clients and other learned people I have come across by virtue of representing health professionals. If you are not mentioned directly by name don’t take that as meaning you are not also a master communicator, it’s just that some of the names I will mention are more illustrative or appropriate for this particular newsletter.
Community Pharmacy Level
When I think about pharmacists as excellent communicators to their patients and as a result are worth their weight in platinum to their employer, pharmacist Mark Kirsch comes to mind. I have known a lot of pharmacists that are loved by their patients, but Mark Kirsch inspires such patient loyalty that they consistently travel with him to new employers. Mark’s power is his genuine and sincere desire to help patients in an ethical fashion. Helping a patient in an ethical manner does not mean simply saying “yes” to all requests from a patient. Sometimes you have to say “no” to a patient’s request but the patient can still love and respect you. The late comedian/actor George Burns once said something like “acting is about sincerity and when you can learn to fake that, you’ve got it made”. Mark does not fake sincerity, he is sincere and all his patients love and trust him for it.
Authoritative Persuasion
As many of you know I have been very active and successful in helping all types of health professionals who have substance abuse or mental health issues to restore their license to practice or avoid criminal prosecution and other issues of that nature. Generally, as a lawyer I will need a persuasive, credible and scientific report from a highly qualified addictionist or psychiatrist. The readers of the reports are judges, administrative law judges, asst. atty. generals and other highly sophisticated legal professionals who have read thousands of reports in their careers. My edge is that I only submit reports authored by extremely well credentialed, authentic, scientific experts. Over the decades, one health professional comes to mind as the most persuasive communicator, and that is Dr. Bruce Baker, an addictionist with West Brook Recovery Center in Grand Rapids.
When I read reports from some experts or treating physicians the quality of the report is not persuasive. Either the report lacks scientific rigor or the writer does not come off as genuine and authentic. In contrast, Dr. Baker’s opinions are credible because they derive from rigorous scientific methodology communicated in a clear, unambiguous writing style.
Community Pharmacists Educating Society
Many pharmacists complain privately that American children are being overmedicated with potent psychotropic medications and the side effects frighten them and me. I have spoken to community pharmacists everywhere and they tell me horror stories of kindergartners receiving extremely potent psychotropics because schoolteachers and some doctors find it much more lucrative and easy to urge parents to overmedicate their children with dangerous drugs than to take the time to understand and patiently correct a child’s behavior. Here is where pharmacists should be speaking out publically as experts.
One of my clients, pharmacist Frank Granett has spoken publically with his book “Over Medicating Our Youth” informing fellow pharmacists and childcare givers about the dangers of the drugs that are being forced upon children. I would like to see more pharmacists speaking out publically about dangers and benefits of medications. This is an opportunity for community and hospital pharmacists to communicate to society about subject matters they are expert in. And the public benefits because the pharmacist is objective and knowledgeable.
Michigan Nurses Association (MNA)
Many of you know my wife is an R.N. and she keeps me updated on the Michigan Nurses Association (MNA) website and activities. I am impressed with the MNA. The MNA takes strong stands on behalf of nurses and their working conditions and it communicates to the public when politicians, hospitals and insurance companies endanger patients by conduct motivated by greed. The MNA identifies Michigan politicians who act against the interests of patients and the nurses go door-to-door informing voters.
Health Professionals Educating the Public
“It’s easy to climb the ladder of success when
your father owns the ladder.” Anonymous
Health professionals seldom contribute their expertise to the public arena. Their absence from the media concedes the arena to charlatans who are paid to disinform the public.
For example, you might want to make yourself available to local and national television, radio, etc., to discuss whether or not Provigil® is safe and effective for “an executive seeking an edge at work.” Yes, this is a white-collar version of the “performance-enhancing drugs” made infamous by Lance Armstrong. I was shocked by a TV “news” story that even claimed there were “no side effects”!
And for example, if nurses and pharmacists do not educate citizens when sociopathic CEOs put lives at risk in the pursuit of bigger bonuses, who will? In my opinion, all health professionals need to inform the public-at-large that for-profit health insurance companies are the problem and not the solution. Not only do for-profit health insurers drive up the cost of health insurance because of the unnecessary, overpaid middlemen but additionally, they encourage waste, fraud and denial of necessary medical care. If you cut provider reimbursement excessively, how will some try to survive? The public will not hear this kind of opinion if health professionals don’t tell them.
The public assumes you make three times the money as you actually do. The public knows that you deserve to be well paid because you make a substantial contribution to bettering their lives; you add value to our society.
The public is now more aware that CEOs of private health insurers are vastly overpaid. But the public is unaware that today’s doctors, pharmacists and nurses are vastly underpaid. I wonder whether it is time to let the public know the truth.
While one CEO of a health insurer gets a half billion dollars ($500,000,000) in a one year bonus for denying coverage, cutting pharmacy dispensing fees to nearly nothing and paying doctors too little money for a patient visit, the health professionals who actually heal the sick are seeing their own lifestyles and income erode severely. I submit, I can find a person qualified to ruthlessly cut business expenses without remorse, much more easily than a person capable of transplanting a heart or kidney. If you make the commitment to become a health professional you should enjoy the benefits in a just society. Not so long ago, doctors and nurses rose through the ranks to become executives in hospitals. They experienced caring for the sick and dying. Today, you can start as a hospital executive without ever touching a patient.
Me Communicating With You
On one level, I make sense of the complexity of pharmacy regulation to my clients. On another level, I communicate to prosecutors, judges and jurors what it is that pharmacists, doctors and nurses actually do for a living and how unclear the laws governing their practice are. This year I have and will be doing a lot more communicating to groups of health professionals on the subject of pharmacy law. I just taught a day-long seminar to health professionals who treat attorneys and judges with substance abuse problems. (JLAP, sort of like HPRP) This seminar was 75% pharmacology and 25% distinguishing between treating judges and lawyers vs. doctors and pharmacists. Yes, I spent quality time with Goodman & Gilman’s.
On the evening of January 8, 2013, I will be doing a CE lecture entitled “Pharmacy Law for the Practicing Pharmacist” jointly sponsored by the Oakland and Wayne County Pharmacists Associations. It will take place at the Fisher Auditorium at St. John/Providence Hospital, 16001 W. 9 Mile Rd., Southfield, Michigan. I look forward to meeting some of you in person. I hope to do some lectures at our colleges of pharmacy in Michigan and elsewhere.
Pharmacists Communicating With Me
Please take the time to send me a succinct e-mail outlining your best practices for the detection of fake, forged or fraudulent prescriptions. I will be adding the best of your knowledge to what I know so that my lectures and articles will be state of the art. I know that some of you are going to astonish me with some of your ideas and I will likely be thinking to myself as I’m reading your email… “I wonder why I didn’t think of that?” I can’t wait to read your ideas.
Books I Like
I have always loved books. Here are some on a variety of subjects.
- Who Stole the American Dream by Michael Matthews. The title says it all but you will be surprised how he traces the key events back to 1971.
- The Price of Inequality by Joseph Stiglitz. Current American history, economics and social implications of our extreme wealth disparity.
- Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne. Early American history should be mandatory reading for all high school students.
- Tracking and the Art of Seeing, 2nd Ed by Paul Rezendes. All North American mammals, their signs, tracks, habits—you will be surprised at what lives in even small suburban wood lots near you.
- Bushcraft by Mors Kochanski. This book teaches skills that once were common to our great-grandfathers/mothers but are lost today. Things you can actually use such as how to properly sharpen knives, safely pruning or even felling trees in your own yard without killing yourself or damaging property or starting a fire with one match in a rainstorm, etc. I used these skills recently when I spent a week in a tent in a remote region in far northern Saskatchewan. If you go to a truly remote area do not trust that your outfitter is competent or that promised vital gear and food will be provided. Expect that they will be incompetent and be prepared to do things for yourself.
- Modern Streamers for Trophy Trout by Bob Linsenman. Trophy trout in Michigan’s streams and rivers are primarily nocturnal feeders. However, we fish most often during the daytime. Where are those giant trout during the daytime? Those trout are not where you assume a big trout would always be.
