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Comment by onlyrealcuzzo | Hacker News Reader

I've always wondered why pharmacists still exist, yet TONS of articles say that there's almost no chance of that job being automated in the foreseeable future. I don't get it. It seems like a problem that's virtually impossible for a human to do, and not too tough to solve programmatically. Doesn't make sense to me. Would love to learn exactly why it will or will not be automated.

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Pharmacists in small towns are often first in line for people to seek medical advice from, often for small things: chit chat about their cough, show a nasty bruise or ugly cut, a weird rash, etc... They're like doctors-lite, a listening ear, but with some authority, and some agency to suggest minor treatment. Not unlike nurses. And usually a pharmacist could recognize when something is more serious and refer somebody to a doctor.

I grew up in such a town, and as a kid, I knew the pharmacist a lot better than the family doctor: "my ma told me to ask you about this wart on my hand", that kind of thing. Heck, our pharmacists even did home deliveries to old people (on her bike, no joke). I'm in a my mid-thirties, so this is not entirely ancient history.

So I can see why that social aspect of the work - which is incredible valuable - cannot be automated.

Now, there's WebMD, pharmacists are doing a shift in CVS, "small town life" is pretty much dead, these soft relationships between shopkeepers and customers no longer exist, people no longer defer to authority as easily as they used to, ...

Also, pharmacists have the law on their side. Drugs are a political issue, so they nurture their role as gate-keeper. For that reason alone, the credentialing will persist. The only difference is that perhaps a pharmacist will just be the lady pushing the on/off button on the vending machine, but still, somebody will need to push that button. The jobs that will be automated won't be the pharmacist's job, it will be the assistant's jobs.

> on her bike, no joke

Why would using a bike to make deliveries be a joke?

Lots of things are delivered by bike.

Another anecdote. Girlfriend recently got switched to a different generic birth control, which lead to her have super bad side-effects compared to her previous one. This was due to a Target pharmacy change in providers.

She tried to call the pharmacy to see if there was any other alternative, or chance to get on her old pill due to the nasty side-effects. All she got in response was heartless no's and not our problem.

So I totally agree with the idea that these soft-relationships are a thing of the past.

Pharmacists aren’t just people selling drugs. They know exactly how to combine them and why you should take one or another based on how you are, what disease you have and if you have allergies. They can even sometimes replace physicians.

Automation can still greatly increase their productivity.

(Even really simple things like computerizing prescriptions and flagging known bad combinations make them more effective, roughly for free)

All my local pharmacies have automated pill dispensers that handle hundreds of medications and flag bad combinations.

The pharmacists at my local pharmacy seem to spend most of their time advising patients and dealing with their problems, verifying the pill dispensers actually dispensed the right medication and it is all intact, handling physical scripts for things like controlled substances, calling doctors when a prescription doesn't make sense or wasn't clear, flagging possible drug abuse, managing inventory, handling drugs that can't easily be dispensed by the machines like insulin and checking how much a person's insurance will cover and if it is still valid.

And 20 years ago, there would have had to be multiple pharmacists and techs to do all of the things that are being done by machines now. Just as I said above, technology is often more of a force multiplier than a strict substitute.

I don't get it. Everything you just said is better done by a computer.

Laws say pharmacist must give you the prescription, in a pharmacy. So there's little automation.

But with online ordering(PillPack ,etc) ,the laws are different, so there's more automation.

Well, IHS locally has a pill dispenser (looks like a pipe organ filled with pills that drop into the container), but they have two pharmacists. I guess there are still errors.

Except the occasional mix in place, they are essential double check against doctors' errors.

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