There's this to be said for chain drug stores: They make us pharmacists look good. There are more than 35,000 chain drug stores in the United States, and they're all out there putting ads on television, showing their pharmacists as young, dynamic, intelligent. We may never be represented by George Clooney or Jane Seymour (the actress, not the queen), but at least they've helped change the belief that the American Pharmacists Association is a wholly owned subsidiary of the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons).

But, in spite of all those ads, our public image remains that of a grocery store clerk with a talent for cryptography. About the only thing we get credit for is the one thing we'd rather not do – interpret illegible prescriptions. In spite of all the reports calling for improved legibility simply as a basic step in preventing medication errors, many physicians still write with all the legibility of a chimpanzee using a finger paint set. Of all the professional gripes that pharmacists have, illegible prescriptions have always been #1.

Physicians are terribly busy these days – no question – to the point where it can be argued that the only reason pharmacy still exists as a profession is to act as a check on prescribing practices. There's not a lot of compounding to be done, and in the United States, the Food & Drug Administration is anxious to put an end to what little is left.

What we do these days is check doses, contraindications, interactions, and, to be honest, insurance coverage. Given the nature of modern community pharmacy practice, physicians should consider our phone calls as a reprieve – a "get out of jail free" card. They don't. We should be greeted with flowers. We're not. Place a call to an MD's office and, if you're lucky, you get 20 minutes of "Eine kleine Nachtmusik." More often, you get to listen to a commercial telling you about all the services the medical practice has to offer, from throat cultures to Tarot readings. One of the great paradoxes of the healthcare establishment is that when you go to see a physician as a patient, they're always being interrupted by phone calls, but call to offer a warning about a drug interaction, and you get: "The doctor can't be disturbed now – she's with a patient."

But, if by chance you do get to speak to the physician, there's at least a 50:50 chance that you'll be told, "I am the Doctor." The variation on that is: "Dispense it. I'll take responsibility." There are times when it seems as if having a license to practice medicine has the same effect as wearing the One Ring.

Pass on the subject of pharmacy and think about surgery and anesthesiology for a minute. When is the last time anybody showed any real appreciation for anesthesiologists? Surgeons are credited with saving lives, and they really do every now and then, but anesthesiologists save lives every day. It's the anesthesiologist who keeps people alive while the surgeons do stuff that, anyplace else, would draw 25 years to life in maximum security. Even so, surgeons get the recognition. The difference? Surgeons do things that are obvious, like cutting people up. Anesthesiologists sit quietly, and turn knobs. Even forensic pathologists get more appreciation from their patients.

And that's about what people think of pharmacists. What you see is what you think you get, and the only part that's obvious is the count and pour part of the job. Any and all thought processes are hidden away. You can't blame people, but it hurts all the same.

The chain stores giveth, and the chain stores taketh away, and these days, the chain stores fill a majority of outpatient prescriptions. If they've done good things for our public image, their promise of speed creates problems on the job. Somewhere, a computer calculates the number of prescriptions that have come in, the number of prescriptions that have gone out, and the wait for each new prescription. According to the computer, a prescription will be ready in 15 minutes, or some other number that's often totally unrealistic.

It's unrealistic because it's 7:00am and there are eight people who want to drop off their prescriptions before heading for work, and there's one pharmacist and no technicians or cashiers. This may not matter to people who intend to stop by on their way home, but anyone who wants to wait for their prescription has run into a roadblock. But the all-knowing computer promised no more than a 15-minute waiting time! Somewhere, in the corporate offices, somebody probably got 50,000 stock options for coming up with this idea. It wasn't worth it.

There are two classes of people who seem to think that pharmacists work for physicians: physicians and non-physicians. Physicians simply take it for granted that they're entitled to the same obeisance normally reserved for kings, presidents, and housecats. Non-physicians just assume that we are an extension of the physician's office or emergency room. This attitude is perfectly understandable, which does nothing to make it less obnoxious. When there's a line, the patient who pushes to the front, explaining that they just spent three hours waiting for their MD, or four hours in the ER, is not entitled to priority service, no matter how much they may think they are. We have enough to do trying to prioritize prescriptions for analgesics, and pediatric antibiotics. If the wait for your physician was too long, complain there. Go tell the hospital that they should have 24-hour pharmacy service (they really should).

Of course anybody who waited four hours in the ER had a long wait because in triage, they were given a low priority – so logically, the people ahead on the line are likely to need their medication first anyway. There are some things that you don't even try to explain.