Heaven is in the detail

How can you tell you are sitting in a meeting with a lot of fellow pharmacists? Because we see things that others miss. Whatever the topic and whatever the discussion there will be a tiny detail that all the pharmacists will see and understand ( and want to talk about) and everyone else will look puzzled.

I went to a meeting this week to discuss the promotional material and strategy of the Strategic health Authority’s upcoming waste campaign. Many of you will have seen this type of campaign before,  brightly coloured leaflets and  posters with a giant medicine bottle and bottle shaped tags to attach to medicine bags  reminding  patients to only order what they need etc.  We listened and nodded during the presentations, until one of the pharmacists pointed out that the bottle shaped tags had not been cut out properly, were not all the same size by at least 3.0mm and were not symmetrical. The non-pharmacists in the room looked bemused as we compared the different tags and worked out what must have gone wrong during the cutting out process and how that should be corrected before the material went out.  We can’t help ourselves; we design life with an HB pencil not a paint brush.

I have often told the tale that if I really want pharmacists to respond to a faxed request , best to include a semi colon in the wrong place and at least one spelling mistake! I am ashamed to say I am not the world’s greatest speller and spellcheck was definitely invented with me in mind. But as we all know if it’s a real word, just not the right one, then it will pass muster. My favourite spelling mistake so far was on a fax that advertised an NMS event. It should have said “Hurry, only a few places left!”, but it went out saying “Hurray, only a few places left”. I won’t tell you how many people we entertained that day.