No more pill counting
Pharmacist looks back over 50 years
Staff writer
Marlin Buchholz has seen a lot of change in the half a century he has been a pharmacist.
Although he still occasionally works as needed by Lanning Pharmacy, he says he will stop next year when his license expires in July.
To commemorate 50 years of service to the profession, Kansas Pharmacy Foundation gave Buchholz a pin commemorating his service. The gold pin is in the shape of a mortar and pestle with a blue stone in the center.
Mortars and pestles traditionally were used to crush ingredients before preparing a prescription. It is one of the most recognizable symbols of the trade.
Buchholz received his degree in 1974 from South Dakota State University.
“I went straight to suburban Chicago with Walgreens,” Buchholz said.
He left Chicago four years later, after his parents took job transfers and moved to Kansas. While visiting family members, he made phone calls and was referred to Swan’s Pharmacy in Marion.
After visiting with Swan’s owner, he walked down the street and noticed Marion Pharmacy.
Marion Pharmacy was owned at that time by pharmacist Bill Jenkins, who worked at a pharmacy in Sabetha but owned several pharmacies throughout the state that he’d purchased to keep services where needed.
Buchholz bought into the pharmacy and purchased the store outright five years later. By then, it was the only pharmacy in Marion.
When he became a pharmacist, each pharmacist was allowed one technician. His was Debbie.
“I married my technician,” Buchholz said.
Now pharmacists are allowed up to four technicians.
Technicians must be licensed and take continuing education.
Computers made many changes in the business.
“Back then, everything was typed on a typewriter,” he said. “All prescription labels had to be stamped by hand.”
Nowadays, computers take care of labels.
Back then, pills had to be counted by hand. Now they are counted by a machine.
“It’s unbelievable,” he said.
Automatic billing makes the process easier.
When patients needed to compare prescription coverage, he used to look up 300 or 400 plans. Computers made that job easier.
“It was very common when I came to Kansas that doctors dispensed their own medicine out of their offices,” Buchholz said.
They dispensed commonly prescribed drugs, but not uncommonly prescribed drugs.
The most expensive prescription he sold when he worked at Walgreens 50 years ago was an antibiotic that sold for $1 a pill.
“I used to tell people there are only seven pills in here, but it’s $7,” he said. “The prices of prescriptions have gone way up.”
Still working once in a while at Lanning Pharmacy has a sweet benefit. He gets to see his old customers.
“It’s just fun to reminisce,” he said.