I don’t know if it’s just a “me” thing, but I get very excited when I find that I have something in common with people I didn’t know I had anything in common with. Last year I went to Turkey and Greece (side note: I would highly recommend that anyone who has the inclination to visit one or both countries do so. More so Turkey than Greece though… Only because Greece is in a not-so-great situation right now. on the plus side, I got to join in one of the demonstrations in Athens! Okay, I have digressed.) While we were in Greece our tour guide felt the need to point out almost every pharmacy we happened to drive past, denoted by a green cross (and no, I didn’t tell her I was a pharmacist). Initially I was tickled by it, but then I thought it was rather odd after a while.

But then before I knew it, I was looking out for all the pharmacies in the vicinity and craning my neck at every turn to make sure I didn’t miss one someone else pointed out. Suddenly, I realized that I felt a sort of kinship with this tribe of apothecaries in a foreign land… I wanted to associate myself with them, I wanted them to also be able to relate to me. I became that strange tourist taking pictures of places, people and things that the National Tourist Board never intended to be representative of a good time in their country. The Turkish people (I wonder if I can call them Turks since I now feel as though I am one with them after having visited their land) were super-gracious. Everyone seemed not only happy to display their wares but actually thrilled to appear in pictures they would ever see on the replay screen of my digital camera. The Greeks, not so much, but some did indulge this over-enthusiastic tourist.

So you know how people organize trips like Holy Land tours and such? I wondered if any other pharmacist would be down for world pharmacy tours. not that I mean to elevate pharmacies to the level of any holy land for sure, but I just wondered if any other pharmacists out there feels the same strange affinity for pharmacies that I discovered I have. My guess is no. So I went trolling for pictures of other pharmacists around the world and here’s what I found:

I love how neat this guy’s supply is on the shelf behind him. One can tell that he obviously has pride of ownership of this pharmacy. Many-a-pharmacy I have laid eyes upon have not been anywahere nearly as well-organized as this guy’s store. Now that I think about it, it’s probably called a chemist. After all, that’s what just about everyone else outside of the U.S. calls their pharmacies. Pharmacists are chemists come to think about it… I mean, we have to know a lot of chemistry in order to understand how drugs work, drug structures, etc. so its definitely not a misnomer.

Then there’s this one. Talk about a relaxed atmosphere. I know here in the U.S. giving patient’s consultations when they get their prescriptions (at least new prescriptions) is required, and thanks to HIPAA you can’t talk to patients in just any old place you see fit. One now has to be conscious of confidentiality issues, discuss in a private place or at least in hushed tones so that even the patient can barely hear you (just kidding).  Anyway, so I wondered how such a concept would fly in this country here. I’m no expert so I can’t decipher the characters but I can at least guess that this is somewhere in Asia. I’m quite sure that the wait time here is less than 20 minutes but judging from the audience in the “waiting room”, folks probably want to hang around there for a little while anyway.

Okay, that’s all I could find for now. If you have any interesting pharmacy photos please feel free to forward them along! You’ll credit for it at the bottom of the page like other folks below

photo credit: Metro Centric John Pavelka and zionorbi via photopin cc