A study of community pharmacies

For this assaignment, I visited three pharmacies: one chain pharmacy, one pharmacy located in a shopping centre and one community pharmacy. There was some overlap because the pharmacy in the shopping centre also belongs to a chain but I had anticipated this.

In the interest of fairness, I excluded the pharmacy where I normally fill my prescriptions as I like the pharmacist there and I wish to prevent bias. I also compared pharmacies which are located in a small geographical area, about a square kilometer. I felt it would be unfair to compare a pharmacy in the suburbs to one located in the city centre as the latter is more likely to have a higher rate of shop lifting and the atmosphere and possible presence of security staff would be due to crime or the customers and not the type of pharmacy. That would impact this assignment and would skew my perception. I also visited the three pharmacies within a small time frame as the number of customers and atmosphere would differ on a Tuesday morning compared to noon on Saturday.

I first visited X, the chain pharmacy. There were about fifteen parking spaces shared between the pharmacy and the surrounding buildings. I didn't see a disabled parking space but it may have been occupied. The entrance to the building was narrow and you had to go through two doors to get in. This might be a tight squeeze for a person in a wheelchair or someone with a pram. The area between the two doors was covered with a thick, fuzzy, black carpet that looked like it would be good at cleaning mud. The rest of the floor was tiled. Beside the entrance was a table with leaflets and a magazine promoting healthy living. Inside the pharmacy was nice and warm but not too stuffy. Presumably the two door system helped.

There were two technicians. One asked if I needed assistance and showed me around when I explained what I was doing. The other was going on or off of a break. The pharmacy was quite small, especially compared to the other two.