Are there hidden advantages to being a pharmacist when travelling abroad, wonders Fintan Moore
Some readers of this piece may be old enough to have seen the movie Airplane! when it first came out in 1980, and others may have caught up with it over the years.
But for anyone who has missed seeing one of the all-time great comedies, it contains the line: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your stewardess speaking… We regret any inconvenience the sudden cabin movement might have caused, this is due to periodic air pockets we encountered, there’s no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you enjoy the rest of your flight… By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?”
In a less humorous vein, I was recently on a flight where the cabin crew had to make an announcement, asking, “If there’s anyone medical on board, could they please make themselves known?”
It crossed my mind to see if I could help but I quickly decided that cabin crews are trained to the same standard of CPR as I am, so there wasn’t anything I could bring to the situation. I was sitting at the front of the plane so I didn’t know what was happening at the time, but it transpired that a woman had passed out and was completely unresponsive.
An air steward had started CPR while others fetched the defibrillator and oxygen. She regained consciousness as soon as the compressions started, so the equipment wasn’t needed, and there actually was a doctor on board to assist.
Nevertheless, the plane diverted and landed at the nearest airport
An air steward had started CPR while others fetched the defibrillator and oxygen
and she was able to walk off to go to hospital. It meant that she and her family ended up in Amsterdam instead of Athens, but all things considered, it could have been worse.
The experience did get me thinking that there are definite advantages to being a pharmacist rather than a doctor in terms of not getting randomly parachuted into medical emergencies during your time off. I know they describe medicine as a vocation, but if
a doctor is relaxing on a flight or a ferry, enjoying a glass of wine as they head off on their holidays, I’m sure they have their fingers crossed that nothing kicks-off requiring their involvement.
I was recently chatting to a GP who used to go on camping holidays in France and he always avoided telling anybody what he did for fear of being pestered with every ailment befalling the families around him. At least we normally get to enjoy our time off in peace.
The not-Abominable Yeti
In common with lots of fellow pharmacists, I’m fond of a mug of tea. The entire profession seems to have it as their drug of choice, but I probably land on the more extreme end of the scale in terms of number of mugs per day. In my world, having the mug of tea beside me is the standard state of affairs and a ‘tea-break’ is like a ‘maternity-break’ or a ‘career-break’ — ie, an absence away from the norm.
Owning my pharmacy helps because I don’t have some middle-management overlord querying the monthly expenditure on teabags. However, it’s taken me about 30 years to find what I think is the perfect dispensary mug. Conventional mugs can look good, and possibly have witty slogans or the owner’s initials, but the contents cool too quickly.
Insulated ‘keep-cups’ do keep the tea warm for longer but are usually steel on the inside, which gets tannin-coated and corroded over time. I recently came across the Yeti brand of camping mug which is the best of both worlds. It’s a ceramic mug on the inside with an insulated metal surround, so it retains heat but it’s easy to clean. It’s also squat, with a wide base so it’s less likely to get knocked over. It’s a recent purchase so I’m still in the honeymoon phase, but I’m optimistic about the future.
And yet another rash
Over the years in community pharmacy, I’ve seen a variety of rashes, including hand, foot and mouth, shingles, slapped cheek syndrome, Disney rash, papular- purpuric gloves and socks syndrome, chickenpox, heat rash, and juvenile spring eruption. I promise that I haven’t made up any of those names.
Every now and then something new will present which leaves me stumped — and I had one case recently. A young woman came in with a large part of her face covered in reddish-purple dots. The rash wasn’t itchy and wasn’t anywhere else on her body. She had had no contact with anything irritant or that she was sensitive to, and hadn’t eaten anything different than usual.
The rash appeared suddenly the previous night, shortly after she vomited due to drinking too much. I couldn’t figure out what it was, so I googled ‘facial rash after vomiting’ and actually got a match. It turned out that she had emesis- induced facial purpura, which is a petechial rash caused when the pressure from vomiting causes facial capillaries
to burst. It’s usually harmless and goes away in a couple of days.
So there’s another rash for your bingo card.
Fintan Moore graduated as a pharmacist in 1990 from TCD and currently runs a pharmacy in Clondalkin. His email address is: greenparkpharmacy@gmail.com.
