What's the one thing you're looking forward to at the Conference this year?

Name of Facility: Summerdale Enterprises, Inc.

City, State: Publishing

Years as a Buyer: 30+

Being away from the hospital for a week hahaha!

Seriously... I like the vendor displays and the CE thats actually relevant to my job.

Name of Facility: CVMC

City, State: Teaching hospital - 270 beds

Years as a Buyer: 1

Colleen
I think it IS being away from the job!

Name of Facility: Summerdale Enterprises, Inc.

City, State: Publishing

Years as a Buyer: 30+

Is being away from the job for a whole week. Getting over half of the ce's that I need to report every 2 years. Reconnecting with all the people that I meet at the conven Taking the wife away from what she does everyday also. And dont forget getting away form the kids! Then the fear is what did they do when I was gone and when will I find out what they did when I was gone.

Name of Facility: Mount Carmel Medical Center

City, State: Teaching Hospital

Years as a Buyer: 7

I always look forward to the meeting every year. I actully use my vacation time and take off a whole week. I love networking with all the buyers. Plus, having all the manufacture reps. in one place, what more can a buyer ask for.

Name of Facility: st. joseph's hospital and medical center

City, State: teaching hospital

Years as a Buyer: 12+

They make you take vacation?! With all of the job knowledge you obtain at this conference...?? I'm still surprised at how many DOPs are reluctant to send their buyers to this conference.

Name of Facility: CVMC

City, State: Teaching hospital - 270 beds

Years as a Buyer: 1+

That's not as uncommon as you may think. My last job and the job I had in the Eighties made me use my vacation time. In fact, only one job I had let me use 'Seminar Time' instead of my own vacation time.
(For those who don't want the soapbox, stop reading now)

One of the reasons Las Vegas was currently chosen as the sole site of the Conference was because it's such a great vacation spot. I've been to eight Conferences here and the city is never the same. While other conventions move around to cities like Salt Lake City, Utah and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, we get to go to the most exciting city in the world! To paraphrase a famous song, "If you can't find it there, ya won't find it anywhere!"

Name of Facility: Summerdale Enterprises, Inc.

City, State: Publishing

Years as a Buyer: 30+

We are fortunate that there are as many progressive thinking Pharmacy Directors who know that their buyers will pick up invaluable information and make and/or cultivate long standing relationships with other buyers and with vendor representatives, all of which can help your facility's pharmacy when a need arises throughout the year.

On the other side of things, there are a number of Pharmacy Directors who think the sky will fall in if their buyer is gone for part of a week to learn how to buy more effectively. Short sighted, nose to the grindstone type bosses will reap what they sow and will be faced with supervising buyers who are less effective in their important positions. Saving a nickel to cost yourself a dollar downstream is short sighted and that is what we are faced with.

What if this profession had 1,000 buyers attending this convention rather than 400 or so? It would make a HUGE statement to the vendor community that Pharmacy Buyers are a solid and strong force in this industry, and they cannot be ignored. The most effective Pharmacy Buyers are the ones that go into their supervisor's office each year and tell their boss they will be gone this number of days in August to attend this conference. It should be part of your job description to attend, and only extraordinary circumstances should keep you from going each year.

Another attitude we face is that of the buyer who says, "I already know all this stuff, so attending would provide no benefit." Pretending like you are the greatest in a profession, with no need to interact with your colleagues, or learn from informational sessions geared toward educating you on current important issues affecting your profession, is head-in-the-sand type thinking. Interacting face-to-face with hundreds of vendor representatives, all under one roof, is not recognized as a benefit by such short-sighted buyers.

For those of you who know you should be there, and if they still won't send you, take a vacation and spend it in Las Vegas, possibly the greatest destination in the world, and attend our conference while you are there.

Name of Facility: Summerdale Enterprises, Inc.

City, State: Newsletter Publisher, Pharmacy Purchasing Outlook

Years as a Buyer: 19 in pharmacy purchasing/13 in publishing

Building an ASHP type like organization which will give better recognition to pharm.buyers. With time, organizations like this will make sure that pharmacy buyer (or any other naming we may decide on) will not be an extention of pharmacy technician but a proffesion on itself.

Name of Facility: Bloomington Hospital

City, State: Hospital

Years as a Buyer: 2