Are Pharmacists Commodities??

I have been a Pharmacist for little less than 5 years and already sort of frustrated at what we learn in school and how different it is in the real world. I can't speak about Pharmacists in other settings as I don't have much experience but I feel at least in the Community Pharmacy setting our profession is being commoditized.

Unlike other health care professions (like doctors or nurses) Pharmacy is very unique in that we have to provide both products (drugs) and services. In addition to providing drugs a Pharmacist is expected to counsel patients on medication usage, recommend OTC medications and also recommend to physicians about medication therapy, at least this is what we have been told in school. But are the Walgreen's, CVS's or the Walmart's of the world caring about the "service" part of our profession?

With the advent of $4 generics and even free antibiotics the chains have degraded the drugs to mere commodities. People are filling prescriptions as they are filling gas in their cars, transferring prescriptions all over the place to find the cheapest pharmacy. And more and more I get a feeling that now that the chains have commoditized the drugs the next step they are going to do is commoditize the "Pharmacist".

If a pharmacist doesn't do what the company wants that's OK, because the chain will replace her with an other pharmacist to do the job. We are being replaced like a cog in the wheel as this is how the chain pharmacies are projecting our profession and may be that is how they want it to be!! Because all they want us to do is sell the drugs; as many as possible and as fast as possible and that is about it for them.

So, the question is who is responsible for this? Are the chains completely responsible for this or we as Pharmacists have some part in it? May be that will a topic for an other post.