Well, it took long enough but finally, pharmacists have ‘arrived’ on the world stage. Never mind prescribing powers or the reversal of FEMPI — pharmacists in the NHS have been shot to stardom via their inclusion in the latest version of Top Trumps cards.
As one of the more interesting Covid-19 related press releases I’ve received over the past couple of months, this one gave me a wry smile. It states that this new edition “… lauds and applauds those key and essential workers who have saved Britain during the pandemic… from doctors and nurses, to less high-profile professions such as pest controllers, midwives and sea merchants. Politicians, who are depicted on the Top Trumps card by Boris Johnson, and journalists are included too.”
Please, don’t let the fact that they have included journalists and pest controllers deter you from basking in the glory. No doubt you have had to do some impromptu ‘pest control’ in the pharmacy yourself over the past weeks and months.
Binmen and binwomen are named as the most stylish of all the key and essential workers “because of their fluorescent and neon clothing, which is all the fashion rage at the moment”.
Politicians score 1/10 in the style section, while teachers don’t do much better, at 2/10. Religious and spiritual workers are cited as the ‘Oldest professions’. That’s debatable, but not a topic to be covered in a family-oriented magazine such as this one.
I hope this has given you some light relief and a little food for thought on some potential stocking-fillers for the Christmas season (the Christmas ads will be ramping-up as soon as this crisis abates). Perhaps the cards will help you in priming your little ones for a career in pharmacy, if that’s what you want for them, or perhaps it’s a case of ‘Mamma, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys… cowboys ain’t easy to love and they’re harder to hold…’
One of the card citations also points out that being a partner of a key worker is “stressful and worrying,” but that’s the subject of another column in itself.
