No refills? U.S., Utah face pharmacist shortage

As more sophisticated drugs become available, they have become the first line of defense for many ailments, preferable to surgery and other more invasive therapies, Young said. For instance, the army of people who now take cholesterol-lowering drugs reduces the number lining up for surgeries to open or bypass clogged arteries. The majority of patients who end up in the hospital for anything but accidental injuries have already been treated with drugs as the first option, he said.

"Medications are how we get people better today." As the role of genetics in diseases unfolds, the arsenal is likely to take another quantum leap.

Demand for new pharmacy products is fueled by advertising, allowed only since 1997, he said. Those slick multipage advertisements in popular magazines, replete with photos of robustly healthy models, send patients running to their doctors for prescriptions.

A helping hand

In the past, pharmacists were primarily pill-counters. Today, preparing and packaging prescriptions are small parts of their responsibility. Often, the actual preparation of a prescription is left to a pharmacy technician or even relegated to an automated dispenser. Even greater use of those alternatives is among the remedies posed to help offset the pharmacist shortage.

More than 1,700 licensed pharmacy assistants are on the job in Utah, and about 230 are coming out of a half dozen schools each year, the UMEC report says.

"There's a big demand for our programs, and they're full days before enrollment periods actually begin," said Ann Dykstra, program consultant at Salt Lake Community College. The program has 60 students each semester. Most complete the 300-hour requirements in eight to nine months and then must pass a national examination before they are turned loose on the job market. "Those who seek employment find it," she said. However, many assistants look on the job as a stop-gap toward more ambitious career goals.

In the mock pharmacy at SLCC's Jordan facility, students get to practice counting with bottles of beans, she said. They also must have basic understanding of the drugs they are to package, including potential interactions and side effects, although it is the pharmacist's responsibility to discuss these things with patients. Increasingly, technicians handle the complexities of billing, freeing the pharmacist for more important duties.

Some of the assistants are robotic. Phil Cart (the tongue-in-cheek name given to the robot in the LDS Hospital pharmacy) bustles about, filling prescriptions quickly — and accurately, because he relies on bar codes. He has counterparts at other hospitals, including St. Mark's and McKay-Dee in Ogden.