National Pharmacy Buyer Day 2023: It’s National Pharmacy Buyer Day on October 27, which is a Friday in the last full week of October. The day is meant to honor the people who keep track of the changing stock in pharmacies across the U.S. We really like the idea of National Pharmacy Buyer Day because, like everyone else, we like it when the pharmacy stores are always full of the right drugs.
National Pharmacy Buyer Day 2023: HISTORY
Drug stores have been around for as long as medicine. In 2100 B.C., ancient Mesopotamia wrote down the first example of pharmacy science. An old Indian Ayurvedic book from the sixth century B.C. may be the first written list of medicines used to treat illnesses. Records show that the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Chinese all had hospitals in the past. In the ancient Middle East, many more people learned about plants and science than ever before. Through the work of many doctors, alchemists, and others, this helped Islamic medicine in the Middle Ages turn into pharmacology.
By the 1200s, little shops that looked like pharmacies started to pop up all over England. Some of these are still open today. During this time, pharmacy and medicine became two separate fields, mostly because of an order from Frederick II, Emperor of Germany and King of Sicily. The practice of pharmacy changed over time. By the time of the Industrial Revolution, it had turned into a mass-produced business with inventions like pre-packaged medicines. The 16th century saw the start of the biggest era in the history of the pharmacy industry: the 20th century.
As for pharmacy buyers, they are a specialized group of medical professionals who play a complex dual-toned role in the medical community. They make sure that the shelves are stocked with new drugs, keep track of costs for hospital pharmacies and big clinics, and check the expiration dates. As part of their job, they need to know a lot about medicine and how to handle money.
Maybe this is why Beth Meese, a former drugstore buyer, thought of the idea to honor them: she knows how much her fellow buyers deserve praise and thanks. Beth was a Pharmacy Purchasing Agent at Provena United Samaritan Medical Center in Danville, Illinois. There she worked. She works for the same hospital as the Service Excellence Liaison now. In 2005, she came up with the idea of making a special day to honor all drugstore buyers. The National Pharmacy Purchasing Association (NPPA) took her idea and made it a cause two years later. 45 days before, they sent notes and a “Proclamation” to the mayor of Chicago asking for help from the city’s lawmakers to make the day official. If the mayor agrees, the Proclamation would be sent back to the NPPA with the mayor’s name and the official government stamp of approval. This would make National Pharmacy Buyer Day a yearly event in the United States.
National Pharmacy Buyer Day 2023: FACTS
- Agatha Christie was an English author who wrote famous stories. She used what she learned as a pharmacy doctor and as a volunteer nurse during the two world wars to inspire her writing.
- Scientist John S. Pemberton made Coca-Cola to help people who were sick, but it was only served at soda fountains for five cents a glass.
- A young pharmacist named Charles Alderton came up with Dr. Pepper because he wanted to make a syrup that smelled like a hospital. Another pharmacist came up with Pepsi because he wanted to copy the success of Coca-Cola.
- One vial of myalept, the only drug that can treat the rare disease “generalized lipodystrophy,” costs $5,000. A full run of treatment costs $71,306.
- Before Louisiana became the first state in the US to require it, no one had to have a license to become a pharmacist.
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PHARMACY BUYER DAY: WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
- We learn more about drugstore buyers and the huge amount of work they have to do. We’re even more thankful when we get the right medicine at the right time.
- The unsung stars of the medical field are the people who buy things in pharmacies. Having a day to honor them makes sure they don’t get forgotten.
- For a lot of us, pharmacies are our first stop for health care. We buy from buyers and use their stock, so if they fail, it hurts us the most.
NATIONAL PHARMACY BUYER DAY DATES
Year | Date | Day |
---|---|---|
2022 | October 28 | Friday |
2023 | October 27 | Friday |
2024 | October 25 | Friday |
2025 | October 24 | Friday |
2026 | October 30 | Friday |