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Living Without Pharmaceutical Pens
I am down to my last few hundred pharmaceutical pens. Some of the pens are older now, perhaps advertising drugs that are no longer available, pulled from the market due to side effects. Some are for medications that I have never used, or will never use. I don't really pay attention to what is written on those giveaway pens. I am more concerned that they write smoothly, have a retractable tip, and fit in my pocket.
We do live in a world of subliminal cues - the purpose of advertising pens anyway. I noticed that I used a Singulair pen to jot down a few ideas this morning. It did not make me want to write a prescription for it though. I think I do pretty well about ignoring pop-up Internet ads, billboards, magazine advertisements, radio/television ads (that I fast-forward through), but perhaps I am still subtly influenced.
About a year ago, our group decided to severely limit the pharmaceutical representatives. They can no longer waltz into our office, asking us to sign for samples, or having them plop down in the middle of a busy day, telling us some new information about an old drug, or about a new drug with old information.
I always try to be respectful to the reps. Many times, they do offer an educational service, providing me with information about a certain drug that I didn't know. They have been trained not to bug us, but on a busy Monday morning with every exam room full, they can't help but bug us.
My stash of pharmaceutical pens must have been discovered by the medical providers who use my office on my day off. I now have to hide my favorite pens. I lose about three pens a day, leaving them in patient rooms where my medical assistant snatches them, or on the counter in the lab where they can be inadvertently contaminated by urine or something. I consider those pens to be lost.
Gone are the days when pharmaceutical reps would bring us t-shirts, hats, paperweights (who in the world uses paperweights anymore?), back-to-school notes, blank note pads, and such clever giveaways as a scorpion embedded in a block of Lucite (who thought of that one - and why?). When the kids were still home, they happily took advertising pens to school. I distinctly remember my son going off to Junior High wearing a Flagyl Vaginal Cream t-shirt, or an Ortho-Novum Contraceptive baseball hat. They didn't care what they wore most days. We even intercepted one of the kids wearing my wife's pants that mistakenly ended up in his drawer! You would think that the side zipper would have given him a clue.
All stops are removed when you go to medical conferences. Pharmaceutical companies pay big bucks for booth space at the bigger conventions. Pharmaceutical giveaways are in high demand, especially by the students. They walk around with HUGE shopping bags filled with every worthless trinket they can get their hands on. There are Frisbees, anatomical models of genitalia, posters, decks of cards, candy, more bags to put inside your bag, and of course, the pens. I must admit that I will use a pharmaceutical pen at their booth to sign their book, evidence to their bosses that they spoke to us. If the pen is a good one, I take it. It they are real good, I take a lot of them. A few hours in the exhibit area can get me enough pens for the entire year. I will be speaking again at the state medical conference in September. I only accept the gratuity of free conference tuition, but my real mission is to get more pens.
I have bought pens in bulk at Costco. I must admit that they are better, but they are also stolen more often and harder to trace. I am always accusing people of taking my pens. Sometimes, they sheepishly produce it, and claim they did not know it was mine. Sometimes my thorough interrogation and body searches are fruitless. My pens simply disappear into thin air. Some people will deny that the pen in their pocket is mine. Frequently, I will have to show them the ink marks on my front pocket to prove that the ink is a perfect match. I have little sympathy for pen thieves. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
I lost the key to my desk, so I can't lock up the remaining pens. A quick inventory yesterday produced some serious doubts that I will make September without going to Costco. I have even considered stealing other people's pens under the guise that I am just retrieving the ones stolen from me.
We are supposed to be a paperless office. If this is true, then why do I even need pens? I use up most of the ink writing notes for school or work. School notes are worth about $35 each - the federal funds given per day of instruction. If a child has an excused absence, the school still gets the money. Ten kids without notes can be a teacher's salary for the day, so I write those notes...all day long. Parents, too, need work notes saying that they took off to take their kids to the clinic. What kind of society have we created that requires "doctor notes" for just about everything?
The value of legitimate-looking doctor notes cannot be underestimated. When I used to work in family practice, I would always have some guy request a note for a day or two he missed last week when he claimed he was sick, but did not want to come in and "bother me". Most people are honest about these things, but some guys just went fishing. I would quiz them a bit, and usually the fisherman would fess up under my highly-honed interrogation style. Depending on my mood, I may still give them the note for being honest. In return, I would get a lot of fish. One guy even brought me a fifty pound tuna - much better than ink pens.
Side Note: This is my 300th Blog Post!
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We do live in a world of subliminal cues - the purpose of advertising pens anyway. I noticed that I used a Singulair pen to jot down a few ideas this morning. It did not make me want to write a prescription for it though. I think I do pretty well about ignoring pop-up Internet ads, billboards, magazine advertisements, radio/television ads (that I fast-forward through), but perhaps I am still subtly influenced.
About a year ago, our group decided to severely limit the pharmaceutical representatives. They can no longer waltz into our office, asking us to sign for samples, or having them plop down in the middle of a busy day, telling us some new information about an old drug, or about a new drug with old information.
I always try to be respectful to the reps. Many times, they do offer an educational service, providing me with information about a certain drug that I didn't know. They have been trained not to bug us, but on a busy Monday morning with every exam room full, they can't help but bug us.
My stash of pharmaceutical pens must have been discovered by the medical providers who use my office on my day off. I now have to hide my favorite pens. I lose about three pens a day, leaving them in patient rooms where my medical assistant snatches them, or on the counter in the lab where they can be inadvertently contaminated by urine or something. I consider those pens to be lost.
Gone are the days when pharmaceutical reps would bring us t-shirts, hats, paperweights (who in the world uses paperweights anymore?), back-to-school notes, blank note pads, and such clever giveaways as a scorpion embedded in a block of Lucite (who thought of that one - and why?). When the kids were still home, they happily took advertising pens to school. I distinctly remember my son going off to Junior High wearing a Flagyl Vaginal Cream t-shirt, or an Ortho-Novum Contraceptive baseball hat. They didn't care what they wore most days. We even intercepted one of the kids wearing my wife's pants that mistakenly ended up in his drawer! You would think that the side zipper would have given him a clue.
All stops are removed when you go to medical conferences. Pharmaceutical companies pay big bucks for booth space at the bigger conventions. Pharmaceutical giveaways are in high demand, especially by the students. They walk around with HUGE shopping bags filled with every worthless trinket they can get their hands on. There are Frisbees, anatomical models of genitalia, posters, decks of cards, candy, more bags to put inside your bag, and of course, the pens. I must admit that I will use a pharmaceutical pen at their booth to sign their book, evidence to their bosses that they spoke to us. If the pen is a good one, I take it. It they are real good, I take a lot of them. A few hours in the exhibit area can get me enough pens for the entire year. I will be speaking again at the state medical conference in September. I only accept the gratuity of free conference tuition, but my real mission is to get more pens.
I have bought pens in bulk at Costco. I must admit that they are better, but they are also stolen more often and harder to trace. I am always accusing people of taking my pens. Sometimes, they sheepishly produce it, and claim they did not know it was mine. Sometimes my thorough interrogation and body searches are fruitless. My pens simply disappear into thin air. Some people will deny that the pen in their pocket is mine. Frequently, I will have to show them the ink marks on my front pocket to prove that the ink is a perfect match. I have little sympathy for pen thieves. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
I lost the key to my desk, so I can't lock up the remaining pens. A quick inventory yesterday produced some serious doubts that I will make September without going to Costco. I have even considered stealing other people's pens under the guise that I am just retrieving the ones stolen from me.
We are supposed to be a paperless office. If this is true, then why do I even need pens? I use up most of the ink writing notes for school or work. School notes are worth about $35 each - the federal funds given per day of instruction. If a child has an excused absence, the school still gets the money. Ten kids without notes can be a teacher's salary for the day, so I write those notes...all day long. Parents, too, need work notes saying that they took off to take their kids to the clinic. What kind of society have we created that requires "doctor notes" for just about everything?
The value of legitimate-looking doctor notes cannot be underestimated. When I used to work in family practice, I would always have some guy request a note for a day or two he missed last week when he claimed he was sick, but did not want to come in and "bother me". Most people are honest about these things, but some guys just went fishing. I would quiz them a bit, and usually the fisherman would fess up under my highly-honed interrogation style. Depending on my mood, I may still give them the note for being honest. In return, I would get a lot of fish. One guy even brought me a fifty pound tuna - much better than ink pens.
Side Note: This is my 300th Blog Post!
Related Topics:
- Drugs & Medications A-Z
- Ear, Nose & Throat Message Board with Rod Moser, PA, PhD
- Living Better Newsletter - Wellness news to keep you healthy and strong!
Labels: drug reps, drugs, medical practice, medications, pens
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