The Accidental Pharmacist: Using Social Media to Drive Change | Shane Jermominski, PharmD, The Accidental Pharmacist, Co-Founder The Pharmacy Guild

Speech to text: 

Mike Koelzer: Shane, for those that may not have come across you online, introduce yourself to our listeners.

Shane Jerominski: my name Is Shane Jerominski, but I go by The Accidental Pharmacist online. So, you probably have seen my mug on the computer before, or seen me on one of the social media platforms. I've had the platform for about 7 years. The bulk of it is on Facebook, where the over 40 crowd does their social networking. So that's where I have the bulk of my followers, about 125, 000 followers of mostly pharmacists and technicians, 

Mike Koelzer: That's a lot of numbers on Facebook. When did you realize those numbers were taking off? Because I think the average pharmacist maybe [00:14:00] has, let's say the average account is a 400, something like that, friends and things like that.

When did you know this was taken off?

Shane Jerominski: Well, so, in the beginning, I worked for CVS Target. When I came out from Pennsylvania and graduated, back when there was a real shortage of pharmacists, especially in California, there were sign on bonuses. So I came here in 2007, my wife came here in 2008, and I worked for Walgreens for my first five years. I got a cold call from Target. Back when it was just Target. And Target was like, they set them in the same level as a Costco or a Sam's Club. It was one of those

unicorn type retail positions. And they just caught me on one of those days at Walgreens where I'm like, anything but here, I'm going to go somewhere else.

So I went to Target. And it was, it was great. You did maybe a hundred prescriptions a day, you had a lot of downtime, 12,

13 hour shifts depending upon your store. So I started writing a little bit because you're just standing there and it's not that super

micromanager type thing that

you have. It's a different business model at a

Target. We were just kind of like an [00:15:00] afterthought for guests. And my philosophy was like, well, we have guests, we're going to turn them into patients. And even though we were a low volume store, every single person there 

There was genuine healthcare going on there.

So, I started writing a little bit.

This was on my personal page on Facebook. And people started saying, hey, you should start a Facebook group . Professional page. And I came up with the accidental pharmacist. The reason why I call it that is I never wanted to be a pharmacist growing up. I was in the Navy right out of high school. The one benefit along with growing up and seeing the world a little bit was that my friends were graduating. A lot of them have business degrees. I wanted to be a teacher. my real like lifelong ambition was to be a literature professor, English teacher,

maybe write a book someday. And I saw a bunch of people that went to school for those things and couldn't get a job. And I had my son at the time, he was about two years old. I was married once while I was in the Navy. You join the Navy and you think you're grown up at 18 years old. Turns out you're

not. [00:16:00] So, but I

had full custody of him at two years old. So I'm like, all right, if I'm going to go to school, I'm going to go to school for something that I'm going to get a job when I'm done.

 So I switched and the rest is history. It's a happy accident, but that's where the name came from.

So I opened a business type account, called it The Accidental Pharmacist and started just writing observations about my life and talking about my family and stuff like that. Just everything. It had about 3, 000 followers on Facebook. This is at the same time that Target became CVS Target.

 So, CVS sort of came in and changed the business model a little bit. There in the culture and all of those things. And they caught wind at some point. I had about three, three or four thousand followers at this time. And they basically gave me an ultimatum. Shut the page down. Or find a new job. because I talked about working conditions and said the magic word unionization, which, it's a giant red flag for companies like that.

 But during COVID, right when the vaccines rolled out my wife had been reached, someone had [00:17:00] reached out to her from NBC. They were doing an article about women in pharmacy that were having miscarriages because of the amount of stress. And she said to this woman who was writing the article, her reporter name, Addie L. Kaplan. She said, well, reach out to my husband, he has tens of thousands of followers online. She did, and she talked to me, and I helped her get in touch with people, and it turned

into 

a story.

Mike Koelzer: Why did NBC reach out to your wife? Is she a pharmacist? 

Shane Jerominski: She is. My wife is a pharmacist for Walgreens. She saw this NBC piece about women who had miscarriages and

before we had all of our children, she had three miscarriages

and I do attribute some of that to stress. So she reached

out

This is when COVID was happening and the vaccines were rolling out. And my wife was super concerned about, she's at a high volume, 24 hour Walgreens, one of the busiest in Southern California, and she thought, this is great, we're going to vaccinate America, we're well positioned to do this, but are we going to

be given the support to be able to do our normal job, which is to safely and accurately [00:18:00] check prescriptions? While vaccinating America

 My wife and I were on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and the Today Show because she was expressing concerns about this and I was on there reflecting that I'm seeing this across the country. It's pharmacists really under pressure to do all of this work and we really need to be supported by the company.

Mike Koelzer: And at this time you're still under 10, 000. 

Shane Jerominski: No, 

Mike Koelzer: like 

Shane Jerominski: When they ran the, piece on television, I was at almost 80, 000

followers. Oh, yeah.

Mike Koelzer: not as good looking as you. but

A big jump. the four or 5, 000 and 80, 000. How did that happen? How do you think it happened?

Shane Jerominski: It's definitely not my aesthetic because I still have only almost 6, 000 followers on Instagram. I say if you have more followers on Facebook or Twitter, then you probably are more of an intellectual than eye candy.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah,

Shane Jerominski: So it's definitely not that, but I try to [00:19:00] mix it up.

I mean, I have a strange mix of dad jokes and jokes. I know we're supposed to keep it a little PC

here. 

It's a mixture. I feel like it's, you never know what you're gonna get because it's part of who I am. what I'm like in real life. 

Mike Koelzer: and it wasn't one of these Twitter things where you're anonymous, even 

Shane Jerominski: no, 

Mike Koelzer: had that 

Shane Jerominski: yeah, 

Mike Koelzer: you were not 

Shane Jerominski: no, 

Mike Koelzer: So people were getting to know 

Shane Jerominski: for sure. And that's what happens when you, when you, Put your genuine life out there

and you talk about your family People develop that sort of parasocial relationship with you like they feel like they

know you when Maurice and I which I work really closely with the doctor of comedy Maurice Shaw

Mike Koelzer: I've had them 

Shane Jerominski: Yeah.

and so Maurice and I do a lot of stuff together and when we go to APHA Even when he goes to something or I go to something they're like, Oh where's Maurice?

 It was a weird thing at APHA for people to come up and be like, Hey how's Mare and the kids? 

But it is

nice and that shows you that you've built, people are vested in your life and the

work that you're doing. 

Mike Koelzer: They do know you. I mean, think about it. The stuff that [00:20:00] I talk about here. I don't want to put any errors of the optimistic guy or this or that. And so I'm the same way here.

And in fact, I'll say things here. don't say to many 

Shane Jerominski: yeah, 

Mike Koelzer: don't have a chance in life. I say it to a friend of 

Shane Jerominski: yeah. 

Mike Koelzer: my wife and kids, but I don't say the same things to my employees. I say here, they don't really care so much about that.

And my siblings and stuff, they're not into this conversation. Obviously they're not into the professional one, but when you have a professional backdrop your ideas and personality come through it. So I fully agree with the stuff you were doing there, people were getting closer to you than a lot of people that you know around the neighborhood.

Shane Jerominski: Yeah, for sure. I mean, there are people that check the page on a regular basis

and what turned out is just like my creative outlet has turned into like we've monetized, like Maurice and I are both on at least on Facebook, we're part of the performance bonus program it's been [00:21:00] about two years that we've been part of this. And honestly, I thought it was fake so

that's

really unique kind of side hustle to have,

and

it's cathartic to be able to say what you want online, and for you to find an audience, so I tell anybody who like wants to be a social media influencer cook, chef, 

Anything you wanna do. Standup comedy, you can find an audience. There are people that get you when you have that much of a total addressable market, you're gonna find people that have similar interests and think you're a delight. So go for it.

Mike Koelzer: All right. So Shane, then you're on the today show with your wife but now you're already at 80 some thousand, 

and you're at what now?

Shane Jerominski: A little over 125,000 followers on Facebook.

Mike Koelzer: When CVS and you parted ways, was this more of I don't want to lose what I gained here on Facebook because I know we're onto something or is it more just [00:22:00] a putting your foot down and saying, I shouldn't have to lose 

Shane Jerominski: Yeah, no, it was more of that. I mean, honestly, I did have like three or four thousand followers when CVS kind of gave me that ultimatum.

But I have to be true to myself and I felt

like I loved Target. CVS sort of came in and changed the culture there

and I just felt like it was time for a change. Sometimes we get stuck at a place, not because we love it, but we're just used to it. People stay for a lot of reasons. My wife is

still at Walgreens because, like, she's been the pharmacy manager at this store for well over a decade. She's been with the company for 16 years. Every day feels worse than the last sometimes, but

you stay because you have seniority or your pay

rate or the benefits and those kinds of things. And so those are sacrifices that she's made time and time again so that we can have the life that we have, and I could be the, I could be the reckless one, and jump jobs, and try to start

unions,

and all those other kinds of things.

Mike Koelzer: Well, people talk about leaving, but you know, things can also be worse. I [00:23:00] mean, you might leave somewhere and have it worse. And you can say, well, we as humans have to do that. We have to keep marching forward. It's like, yeah. But in the midst of stuff, how much do you want to bite off?

Shane Jerominski: For sure, the one thing I can say is like, Pharmacy does have a lot of outlets, but when you're working retail for a certain amount of time, You start to feel pigeonholed. I know that there are pharmacists in their late 30s, early 40s who feel like they can't do anything else. While they

do still have

so much time, but you seem like you've narrowed your focus where the idea of switching to a different practice setting seems out of the realm of possibility even though it isn't.

Mike Koelzer: All right. So now Shane, you're this handsome, funny, engaging guy online. Now you've got some numbers and , was the impetus inside of you to say, I'm going to really use my numbers for the good of the profession and things like that? Or were [00:24:00] you invited into this somehow?

And did people invite you because of your numbers or imagine it's all kind of mixed together somewhat. 

Shane Jerominski: Yeah, so there are a lot of people out there that are advocating for the profession and doing great work. I could list off a whole

bunch, but, what I would say is that I thought, well, my wife really put herself out there. She wore her Walgreens white coat on television and managed to keep her job.

So even though she like said all this stuff and really painted Walgreens and not the best light because

She wanted the support from them. I realized there was power in having a social media platform as large as mine because I thought Walgreens had fired people for much less. I mean, I was talking about working conditions, not on national television and CVS showed me the door.

What's different about my wife, working there for that long and she still got to keep her job. So I felt like I still need to do exactly what I'm doing online, telling jokes and making social commentary. I've even gotten in

[00:25:00] trouble for my political views sometimes, even though I try to make it lighthearted all the time.

and I allow everybody to express themselves online as much as

possible. One of the other draws to the page is like we just talked about, how they all have strict social media policies. People send direct messages to the accidental pharmacist online all the time and want to ask questions anonymously to get a wide swath of opinions from people.

Pharmacists and technicians across the country. So, I had to hire two administrators to answer all the direct messages that come to the page.

Because, some days we'll get a hundred direct messages to the page. People wanting to ask questions, or follow up with something, or inviting people. so that's one of the other draws. And I said, I'm going to try to be like I'm listed as a comedian on the accidental pharmacist. But when the situation arises where I have to go into full advocacy mode, I do that. Bled Tanaway from Pizza's Not Working does that. Dr. Maury Shah from RX Comedy and Lonnie DeWong, the four co-founders of the Pharmacy [00:26:00] Guild. So when the walkouts occurred at the end of 2023, the first people to reach out to us were the main organizers of the Kansas City walkouts to help amplify that message. I was the default face of those walkouts, of Kansas City walkouts and then Operation Spotlight in Farmageddon. I was on Fox Business, I was on CNBC, I was on Bloomberg, I was on Newsmax, don't hold that against me, but I was on Newsmax.

Mike Koelzer: The administrators are cool. Is that something that they're your ghostwriters or are they involved? How does that work out?

Shane Jerominski: So Brad and Kim have been with me for quite some time. I would say at least four or five years. The page has been in existence for about seven or eight years. Brad was a friend from pharmacy school. He doesn't show his face online, but he does. Just create content on occasion. And Kim, I call her the meme thief extraordinaire.

She's a retired military pharmacist she was Navy just like me, she rounds out all the masculine energy in a place with me and Brad, and,

uh, she, she brings a little bit of the [00:27:00] other side. Like I always said, I bring my politics on it, onto the page sometimes, especially in

election years, and that might get me in trouble, but Kim is the other side.

So Brad is kind of the middle, I'm the left, and Kim is uh, the right. So all of that sort of dialogue is good for numbers and good for engagement and I love to get everyone's thoughts on anything, whether it be pharmacy, whether it be family, whether it be politics, social commentary.

We want to get all sides of the argument and that's what makes the Internet fun, right?

Mike Koelzer: Do you do videos on your site or is this just all written?

Shane Jerominski: So we do videos sometimes. I used to do videos in the car all the time when I commuted to Brawley because I

had, I would stop halfway, I had a very strict routine in the morning and I'd work out at 4 a. m. I run most days because I can't function without it. I'd be on, High dose of antidepressants, if it wasn't for that.

So I run in the morning, drink like, one coffee and a gallon of water. So I gotta stop on the commute. So I would get in the habit of doing like videos. Sometimes I do live. I've had drinking games with the accidental pharmacist on a weekend on [00:28:00] occasion. So it's really just whatever I feel like doing for the day.

And that's kind of the draw. So, however I'm feeling that day, if I choose violence, I'll say something inflammatory, and then, start a

dumpster fire and go to work. 

Mike Koelzer: how much action are you guys putting out? How many posts are you putting out? Fresh ones.

Shane Jerominski: It really depends on the day. Like I said, I run most mornings and then I get into the tub for 30 minutes and that's my quiet time to write. I make memes, I'll tweet stuff and then put it on to Twitter. Instagram, and that automatically posts it to my page. So, it just really depends on the day, how I'm feeling. I love to write, and I wish I had more time. But, some days I have a lot of time. Other times we're just overwhelmed with stuff. 

Mike Koelzer: Could be once a day. Any less than once a 

Shane Jerominski: No,I can't remember a day where I haven't put up something.

Mike Koelzer: Something.

Shane Jerominski: on a holiday, I always try to, like, put up, that's the thing too, I could be a real sap sometimes, and I try to, they'd be like, oh, the guy that told all these jokes and done all these [00:29:00] things, then all of a sudden he puts up something really, like, I try to show my children, I try to show my wife that I love them and express them, show the world, that you're proud

of them, and that it's okay to be a man and still, you know, You know what I mean?

In this hyper 

masculine culture sometimes, that it's

okay to talk like that, and, that

draws people from a community of pharmacists that are 80 percent women, so, being able to show that side sometimes I think has a draw.

Mike Koelzer: Wondering about with Walgreens, if they didn't reprimand your wife at all because they knew that she was a 

Mike Koelzer (2): wife 

Mike Koelzer: of somebody with 80, 000 followers.

Shane Jerominski: I think it had a little bit to do with that. NBC also said they would do a follow up piece if she was retaliated against.

Marilyn's been the pharmacy manager at her location for over 10 years. She retained her entire staff during COVID, which is phenomenal. We lost 19 pharmacists in the Coachella Valley in the Palm Springs market during COVID [00:30:00] because of how difficult the working conditions were. So The optics would have also been terrible, and I realize Walgreens doesn't care

about a wrongful termination suit and writing a check for six or seven figures. They would easily do that, but I think

that they know that I would have never let it go, that my page wasn't going away any time soon.

So I would have been reminding the world over and over again that this happened.

Mike Koelzer: \So Shane, this is going on. It's kind of a natural progression as it can be for someone who's got his face in front of things.

 You mentioned blood and so on, were you guys already in touch 

or was that. because there were some big ideas happening.

Shane Jerominski: So the first time that I made contact with Bled is when she sent the original Manifesto pizzas not working to my page via direct message And I remember I wasn't even the first person who read it Brad was and Brad's like you need to post this So I just helped before Bled [00:31:00] was You As big as she is now and

kind of a household name if that household is run by a pharmacist. 

I saw it and I immediately said this is gonna resonate with a lot of people. So I posted it a lot because some people thought I was the one who started Pizzas Not Working and it wasn't.

I always had to remind them in the beginning that it was, this is bled. 

Mike Koelzer: It probably doesn't work for you and me. I mean, we're a couple of guys who like 

Shane Jerominski: yeah, yeah, it

does for sure. 

Yeah, no, I, that's enough for me, right?

Mike Koelzer: sure.

Shane Jerominski: so, but I always try to amplify the great voices that are out there. I think there are so many people that have amazing ideas especially in the independent pharmacy community. I think it's rife with innovation because it has to be right now.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah. That's for sure. So Shane,

Is that part of that process that you're thinking about and becoming a leader of a union, or is that something that was in your back pocket from years back, where did that come into play?

Shane Jerominski: So the connections that I made with Bled, and [00:32:00] then I made the connection with Maurice, the first time we started talking is when he was fired from Walgreens for doing stand up comedy that he'd been already doing

for like six years. So he reached out to me

because he knew that I went through a similar type situation with CVS, and I

said Maurice, it's not really about the comedy, it's about you having a platform. Even if you haven't militarized that platform or utilized it for whatever you think is the right thing, Walgreens

Large corporations and large corporate pharmacies do not want anyone with a voice and a following. And that's the reason why they'll try to shut something down preemptively.

And Maurice's comedy even was very PC and. They still didn't want him, even though he had pictures with his like DM and supervisors at a comedy show after taking pictures with him,

but all of a sudden something changed. And the only thing that would change was the amount of followers that he had on multiple platforms.

And that's really where it came from. But we all started [00:33:00] working together, pushing whatever crazy idea. A bunch of dreamers are together online trying to do Good things, funny things, advocating for the profession, so we've all kind of just done it. And there are other people that didn't found the Pharmacy Guild but that I really always try to push their stuff, and we support each other. The political pharmacist, the cynical pharmacist pharmacy excuses. All the people, whether they're I know the names of them all, not all their names are public. But all of us kind of work together when, especially when we have something we'd really like to get out to everybody. 

We all share each other's jokes and lighthearted stuff. I think we all make that switch to say we want to support the pharmacy community because this is what's happening. And this is relevant and we should push it out to everybody we can.

Mike Koelzer: does the. Unionization comes from you guys positively bitching about things or does someone else come in with [00:34:00] this and want you to rise up with this project?

Shane Jerominski: So, Like I said, I'd been raising money for about two and a half years because I thought unionization was one of the ways we could save the profession. Not the

only problem. Yes. Like, 

Mike Koelzer: This was 

Shane Jerominski: yeah, yeah, yeah. So we had a GoFundMe account. I've been in the healthcare sector for two plus years.

And I took meetings with multiple established unions, UFCW. I took meetings with Kaiser's, like a coalition of unions, but leaders from the Southern California area, UNAC. I had meetings with them. They were all like, oh, that's great. You raised 13, 000. We could possibly have a campaign in Los Angeles or somewhere that might be able to do that.

But I never felt good about that because we raised money from pharmacists and techs across the country. So

I thought, A moonshot is the only thing that might work here. So,

I got involved with the Would You Like Shots with that documentary. I had all of the followers vote on whether to become an associate producer. So the accidental pharmacist followers, when that [00:35:00] film is made, will actually be associate producers that will come up on there.

So we donated 10, 000 to them as an investment.

And then during, Walkouts, when the Kansas City walkouts occurred, the main organizers reached out to me and I said, whatever I can do, I will put on my platform.

We could put things out so that you can, we can fight the narrative that CVS says that this is specific to this market, that this is not reflective of the culture or the working conditions across the country. If you're not familiar with the Kansas City walkouts, I don't know how much you followed the story, but there was about 12 to 15 stores that were in the CVS Target channel in the Kansas City metro area that were extremely upset about the working conditions, specifically that their stores were open a little over 60 hours a week, and all of a sudden the technician hours were being cut to 16 hours. So that's like a pharmacist running the entire place by themselves.

And I realized. Target is like CVS targets are low hanging fruit in the hierarchy of needs in a [00:36:00] company like CVS.

So, 

They weren't giving them the support. They wouldn't even let them shut off the immunization

thing online. So people

were just making appointments. So you might have an appointment every 15 minutes, nobody to do anything, and you're running the

whole place yourself. So they said, the hell with this is enough, we're gonna do something. So some really strong pharmacy leaders in that community there said, we're gonna walk out. And they did. And it elicited a response from CVS that I think, frankly, A lot of the pharmacy community was surprised. I mean, they flew out Prem Shaw and they flew out Michael DeAngelis, one of the heads of like HR out and

sat down with them and said, how can we fix this? And it caught some media attention and that's all it took.

I thought, well, we really have to seize on this and amplify this message for them. So one of the organizers reached out to me and said, Hey, these technicians want to support the walkout, but they can't even afford to lose the hours they're getting. Some of them are only getting. 16 hours already.

So I thought, what [00:37:00] can we do here? And I said, well, why don't I use that money that we have in the union fund and use it almost like a strike fund and give them a supplemental days of pay

And these technicians were being so honest. He was sending it to me through one of the organizers. Oh, this is so and so, but she's, she was like, oh, I'm only scheduled six hours today and I'm 16. 50 an hour. So I texted back to him. Today you're getting a living wage of 25 an hour and you're getting eight hours of pay. And we posted that online. And over the course of the Kansas City walkouts and Operation Spotlight before the last one, Farmageddon, we went from 13, 000 into that count to almost 65, 000.

Mike Koelzer: Wow. 

Shane Jerominski: That was when the momentum started. Then the people from Operation Spotlight, which started on Reddit, But actually that the anonymous person who started that was a health care supervisor for Walgreens, but new in role So like a district manager that when he reached out to me said like, you know I'm just I feel like all I'm doing is putting out fires.

I [00:38:00] can't support my pharmacist. I can't give my technician hours that they deserve. So we pushed that out And during that, and then Pharmageddon was kind of, well, the name came from me. I came up with the idea, and I thought this should be any pharmacy in any practice setting across the country that feels That patient safety is at risk.

That their pharmacies are unsupported. That they can't do all of these jobs because they're not being given the time and resources to do

them Safely and accurately. And that's when we started getting that national media coverage. And Shane Brinton, who's the director of IAM Healthcare, who'd been talking to me for like two years since I started raising money. Finally got his boss's attention to say not just the accidental pharmacist, but this community that he's built online are not just people starting a fire and talking about this. We should allocate the resources to allow them to try to roll this out [00:39:00] nationally. 

But even though there was minimal disruption, it was enough for us to launch this, to launch a new union that already has members.

I mean, we've already won elections. We have hundreds of campaigns going across the country. We had to hire staff in Massachusetts. We hired staff in Michigan. We have staff in Denver. So there are union organizers for the Pharmacy Guild that are already out there organizing.

Mike Koelzer: I saw in the recent press here that two of the CVSs came on board, What does that mean exactly? Like when CVS comes on board, is that the workers came on board and they said, we're doing this. And if you don't like it we quit. What does that mean 

when a store comes on board?

Shane Jerominski: So, the first location to file with the National Labor Relations Board to unionize was CVS Omnicare in Las Vegas. So it's a

 Facility that services long term care facilities across Nevada. They have 31 pharmacists and technicians. So in order to [00:40:00] file with the NLRB, you have to have 30 percent of the workers in that, in whatever bargaining unit. Say, sign cards and say, yes, I want to have an election. It's not that they want to be in a union, they want to have an election. We've set the bar extremely high, like 70 percent of people at work before we file. 

Mike Koelzer: This is often the workers. This isn't the management or the owners of CVS doing this. This is all 

Shane Jerominski: Yeah, so we had 70 plus percent of all of the employees at CVS Omnicare in Las Vegas say that they wanted to have a union election. So they filed with the NLRB, then six weeks later, as long as there's no. They don't contest it for some reason or they don't contest like they say, well, you have to have the drivers in with the people in this facility or something like that. Six weeks later, you have an election and if you get 50 percent plus one, then the entire place is unionized and we won by 87 percent in Omnicare in Las Vegas and now we're working on contracts for that facility. We had two filings with the [00:41:00] two stores in Rhode Island that won their election on the 23rd of May and we have two more stores that filed. There will be an election in about four and a half weeks.

Mike Koelzer: And when they have this vote, are they voting for what union or are they voting? We want to unionize. And then they interview different 

Shane Jerominski: No. So, they, They're voting that they want to have representation by the Pharmacy Guild. So, the

Pharmacy Guild, with all the resources of IAM Healthcare and IAM, have 15, 000 contracts in place and master negotiators. We are their union, that once we have a contract in place, they will be Union due paying members of the Pharmacy Guild.

Mike Koelzer: So let me think here. So they're your union. 

Shane Jerominski: We represent them. The Pharmacy Guild is the union that's going to represent all of those workers. So like right now it's two CVS's, soon it'll be four CVS's, plus CVS [00:42:00] Omnicare. We have, like I said, hundreds of campaigns, not just with CVS, but with all the companies you can think of right now that are getting to the point of signing enough cards that we file

in multiple states. 

Mike Koelzer: What's that other business? That Wasn't a union service. That was the employees that are part of this now.

Shane Jerominski: My big dream was to start a union of just pharmacists and technicians, and

nationally, a national union, but to do it from scratch without the backing of an established union is

very difficult, because it requires attorneys, and it requires, like, Organizers and all of this stuff,

which is why 13, 000 is not enough to start a union. You have to

have an established union. So IAM Healthcare, which is an international union, the International Union of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, has a healthcare wing. That healthcare wing only represents, like, allied health professionals, some pharmacists in the hospital setting, but

no retail pharmacists.

practice setting. 

Mike Koelzer: From my little [00:43:00] research I did. It seems like I was coming across a lot of those healthcare things in that I don't recall seeing an actual based one.

Are you guys the first or are there some out there already

Shane Jerominski: So this is the problem with the, Shane came up with the name Pharmacy Guild, Shane Brinton, the director of IAM Healthcare.

There's a guild of professional pharmacists that has about 900 members and they're based out of Northern California. 

Mike Koelzer: Are they a union?

Shane Jerominski: a union, but they don't really have too much of a foothold, like not nationally.

They're just in northern

California. And then there are unions that represent pharmacists like UFCW, which is the United Food Commercial Workers Union,

has has a foothold with some CVS is in the California area

and lots of grocery store chains. Obviously, the pharmacy is And while I think any union is better than no union at all, pharmacy is sort of an afterthought for a very large union that mostly represents, like, grocery store workers and meat [00:44:00] slicers and all those other things. So because pharmacy is very specific and has very specific problems I really wanted to Have something that had sort of autonomy, which was just pharmacists and technicians and having founders and leaders Within our community very much involved in every aspect Organizing the contracts making sure we get best in class best in industry contracts for our members

Mike Koelzer: Being independent, I haven't thought a ton about it, but I think part of the reason why some of these other unions have risen up without maybe everybody knowing about it, like me, is because do start from the bottom up, they start from a vote of these 30 people or so 

Shane Jerominski: Yeah, 

Mike Koelzer: they don't necessarily have to change the world from the other direction down with that comment though, Shane,

Are there groups that have tried to get national attention for the [00:45:00] unions? Is this something that has popped up every 20 years? Is this new coming as a national force? 

Shane Jerominski: I think that there are unions that have tried to like expand and tried to like, like, like UFCW does go after CVSs in certain areas of the country and has

gotten a little bit of a foothold. The difference is that they don't have founders that together combined have half a million followers across every social media platform.

I'll give you an example of why this is different. So, when we launched PharmacyGuild. org, the website where you can go out and fill out an interest form if you're interested in organizing your workplace,

IEM Healthcare had their own website prior to that, and they would get maybe five leads on that page per month. The day that we launched PharmacyGuild. org, right after the walkouts, 30, 000 people went to that page on the first day and crashed the website.

Mike Koelzer: It can't be top of mind awareness. And so that money can't be spent like McDonald's or [00:46:00] Coke 

Shane Jerominski: Yeah, 

Mike Koelzer: everybody.

And. and social is, I mean, this is it, these are the numbers that are needed, but not from on top. Super Bowl dish, but kind of bubbling up with everybody. The social, you know, I mean, why social's 

Shane Jerominski: It's a very grassroots thing, and I, there have been people that have tried to do this in the past. One of, one of my idols, Dan Schneider from the Pharmacist documentary on Netflix, I'm not sure

If you've ever seen that, he's one of the keynote speakers on the cruise that Maurice and I are putting on in the summer.

He,

uh, tried to, he told me like, I really love that you're doing this because, Back when I was young, I was trying to organize. I thought unions could save us and he's in Louisiana and they're, the South, it's hard to unionize anywhere, but it was really hard, especially at that

time When

Dan Schneider was a young man to try and organize in the South,

but, uh, yeah, so the people have

tried, but we have bigger platforms and larger voices now to be able to do that.

Mike Koelzer: It's grassroots, but with a big voice of the grassroots.

Shane Jerominski: so [00:47:00] we're taking those grassroots and we're having, like, yesterday we had an organizer training, so people that have went to the website already and said they want to organize their workplace, and these are people that are actively, like, talking to their employees right now, getting ready to sign cards, so we had the first training had ten people on it, and they were like, Pharmacists and technicians from Texas and Utah and Washington and all over the place and working for different companies and specialty and mail order.

So, these problems, while they're different in every practice setting, there's a lot of universal issues in pharmacy. And, I don't believe that unions can address all of them. But I think that if we can handle the labor piece, then we could start working towards other things.

And if we have a, the Pharmacy Guild becomes big enough. I understand that we need to have help with regulation and legislative reform. My heart is in independence now because I have so many friends that work in that industry and I help out at three different locations out here as much as I can.

And I see that [00:48:00] PBM reform is life or death for independent pharmacies right now. So many places in the country, they're circling the drain and if we don't do something about this, we're going to have a world without choice and I don't want to see that,

Mike Koelzer: Since the eighties I've seen the numbers going down since then, but this last year certainly has some cliffs out there that people are staring down and are now. Right.

Shane Jerominski: for sure. It's unfortunate because I think like they all say, well you can do all these extra things and there's all these other ancillary revenue streams for independents, but I have such a problem with not being able to just take care of patients and fill actual prescriptions and that be enough to sustain a business.

Mike Koelzer: Well, Shane, Some people might say I bury my head in the sand and maybe I can at my age, but I'm there. I mean, I have to let the market help you decide. But you start doing so many different things. And it's like, [00:49:00] are we pharmacists anymore? Where's the pride?

Why the schooling? And let's just close this whole damn thing down.

Shane Jerominski: I'm all for the expansion of the profession and the expansion of scope of practice, but the store that I work at a lot is right across the street from a Walgreens there's not a day that goes by that someone doesn't walk in and say, I can't stand it over there. I,

Everyone says great things about your pharmacy.

We'd love to come in and

transfer all our prescriptions. And we used to take every one of those patients in open arms and wow them with our service and

wow them with our ability to take care of them and treat them like real patients. And now, before we accept them, we have to decide whether we can afford to or not, which is absolutely ridiculous.

I

never thought I would see the day. 

Mike Koelzer: Absolutely. It used to be that maybe a customer left for some reason.

And you tried to find the reason and track it down and things like that. And now you might have a customer that leaves and someone on my staff, who's smarter than I am, said, Hey, it's all right, we lost, we lost a thousand bucks on the [00:50:00] family last year.

Shane Jerominski: Yeah, 

Mike Koelzer: makes me feel better. So sad though. 

Shane Jerominski: That is a shame because it shouldn't be like that. And that's

the

The original time when you reached out to me, it was about those HIV medications and counterfeit drugs. And I thought Benjamin Jolly wrote a sub stack about it. Who I would be, one of the other great innovative leaders in the independent pharmacy community.

 He talked about it and he he, he illustrated it beautifully that These secondary wholesalers that were servicing brand name HIV medications wouldn't even exist if the primary wholesalers like Cardinal and McKesson and Amerisource were allowing us to acquire the products at a price that wasn't less than the reimbursement of these insurances.

The PBMs and the wholesalers are responsible for having 85, 000 counterfeit HIV medications on the market. That wouldn't have existed if there wasn't somebody to sell that to. It really, it never would have existed.

Mike Koelzer: I [00:51:00] had Shabir from the Partnership for Safe Medicines on the show and he was saying the same thing and we were kind of joking that if they brought Pharmacists in front of the law, because they thought they were involved with this, and the attorney would get up and say, uh, Mike, did this and there was only 500 you lost and the judge would say, wait a minute, you just said lost. I think you meant you only made 500 instead of, 

Shane Jerominski: Yeah, 

Mike Koelzer: It's like, no, we lost it. Do you mean you lost it? It's like, well, instead of losing a thousand, we wanted only to lose 500.

It would just be a sham court case. They'd throw it out because nobody would know what the hell you're talking about, how pharmacists 

are losing money on this stuff. 

Shane Jerominski: That sounds like an unsustainable business model and it would not be tolerated in any other industry except for pharmacy.

Mike Koelzer: no, exactly. Because here's the thing too. They are to blame because. the devil's advocate could say, well, any industry has a [00:52:00] squeeze and things like that. And you're saying that those that want a good deal on things are to blame because we want good deals on stuff.

It's like, no, you're to blame because you've got people stuck in this oligopoly. their kids and you're slapping them in the face with these negative reimbursements and yes, you are to blame.

Shane Jerominski: For sure. And I, I told everybody who asked for an interview during that one I reached out after the patient that I had called me and said a factory sealed bottle of Biktar I had Tylenol in it. I immediately took the patient's word for it, even though there's reasons why they would want a free bottle.

If at that time it wasn't, Medi Cal wasn't.

Statewide, it was county specific. So I gave him a free, I opened a bottle, a factory sealed bottle, checked that it was Biktarvy, sent it out to him, got the other stuff, and just on the outside chance they were telling the truth, I called Gilead to report it to see if there was any other problems with the lot. And that's what triggered the entire investigation, [00:53:00] shut down two secondary wholesalers, took 85, 000 counterfeit drugs off the market, and I said, I'm not the first person to get a call, I'm sure I'm not the first independent pharmacy to get a call saying, hey, I got a fake HIV medication, but they probably just waited to see if they could rebuild the prescription and let it go away because they didn't want anybody looking into anything or anything like that.

So God only knows how long this was going on. I'm sure it had been going on for quite some time before anybody thought to report it back to the manufacturer of the product. 

Mike Koelzer: So, sad,

Shane Jerominski: It is sad. But I understand. the owner, who I had been running the place for a while, had six pharmacies, but he worked at this location for about 20 years by himself before he started expanding, and he had built out this HIV business in a very remote area of the Southern California desert, where it was an underserved community to begin with, and all of a sudden CVS Caremark took over the county specific Medi Cal, it was California Health and Wellness run by CVS [00:54:00] Caremark, all of a sudden he was losing 100 on every prescription.

So he took 20 years to build this business that was semi profitable or at least, in the black, not in the red on every prescription. So of course he's going to go look for other wholesalers to try and service these patients

Mike Koelzer: Absolutely. And you were alluding to this Shane, but that's Shabir when I had him on the show, we were bemoaning the fact that there's no manufacturers on his list and I said the manufacturers, they want to hush this up. If something happens, they're not out leading this cause for counterfeit drugs, they want that.

Name as far away from them as they can. And so if it's not for you and people like him, best to sweep this stuff under the rug.

Shane Jerominski: for sure. So I understand why a small, owner operator, independent pharmacy who might have one HIV patient probably said, I don't want to talk about, you know, I'll I'll just see what I can do to [00:55:00] get another bottle of this patient as soon as I

can rebuild the insurance. Because you couldn't afford, I mean, 3, 000 extra going out might be your entire bottom line for the month.

Mike Koelzer: My dad, God rest his soul. But talking about sweeping stuff under the rug, he would say, like, if he mixed up a bottle of, Augmentin or something name brand, this is 30 years ago that the person didn't pick up, he would say, well, Mike, what I do is when the rep comes in the store, he says, I hold it up and I say, yeah, the patient said she, he, Saw a spider leg in here and the reps were like, here, give me that.

Here's your new bottle.

Shane Jerominski: So smart, that's smart.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah. Yeah. So Shane has anybody gotten to you and I don't mean just a naysayer, but has anybody gotten to you that, felt like they put you back on your heels a little bit that some respondent said something that got under your skin that made you [00:56:00] question this not just upset.

Cause I get upset all the time, but maybe made you question this. Has there been that, or have you just moving 

Shane Jerominski: Oh yeah, no, for sure. Like, I mean, there's definitely people that have gotten to me, and there's things that I've said where I'm like, I probably shouldn't have said that, or I shouldn't have said it the right way. But, I would say this, like, if you're trying to push the envelope, if you're trying to grow an audience, especially if you're

trying to be a comedian, especially in today's society, you're going to ruffle feathers. And There are people that can really hate you. They can really think that you're doing the wrong things for the profession. I,

I dress up in Dunkin Donuts onesies and go to coffee at APHA. Like someone who took some other social media personality who has a sizable following took a picture of me in a Dunkin Donuts onesie getting coffee at APHA and they didn't know that I had a platform at all and said, I'm pretending he's here for APHA.

And then other people started tagging me and it was like, Dude, you have no idea who that is. So have I, and then now that I've gotten more attention and some people have reached out [00:57:00] to me via direct message or even said it on the page, like, you're the wrong person to be leading the profession in any way.

You're unprofessional. And I said, you're welcome to do it a different way. . I've always tried to, and even my wife's like, do you really want to do that? Are you sure you want to put this out there this time? Because

I can do some crazy stuff, but I feel like. I care deeply about the profession and anyone who has a one on one conversation for that. I can see that. And yes, my real life is out there, but it's a hyper heightened sense of what it is what I am on the internet is not necessarily what I am in

real day-to-day life, 

Mike Koelzer: Sure. Sure.

Shane Jerominski: What creates content. And those people that I said, there are people that like to hate you, those people probably push your numbers up even more.

They're the ones who check it constantly five times a day. So

Mike Koelzer: That's what's the phrase: the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is apathy. They just don't care. 

Shane Jerominski: yeah. Yeah.

Mike Koelzer: Just don't care. [00:58:00] They're just not even gonna look your stuff 

Shane Jerominski: If people are commenting on my stuff and they don't like it, they realize other people are going to read it. They wouldn't be yelling into the void, but they realize that there are eyes on pages. And try to take criticism about things, and say, well, should I have said that better, or was it worth the, was it worth the heat? But um, I just have to trust my gut on most things and if it comes from a good place, which I can say some inflammatory things sometimes, but it always comes from a good place and there's always an end goal. So some of the

things that I say sometimes to cause some controversy is

because the next day I know there's something I need to have eyes on pages for.

Yeah. hmm. 

Mike Koelzer: now. And just this year I said, you know what? I'm growing up in life because that little voice inside of you says, should I make this comment out loud or not? And I realized I should listen to that once in a while. Not all the time, but you realize that voice is there.

Well, here's the thing, Shane comedy comedy, gestures, they were the only [00:59:00] people in old in ancient times that could tell the truth, 

Shane Jerominski: Yeah, 

Mike Koelzer: that could tell the truth to the King. everybody else was afraid to be

Shane Jerominski: they had the king's ear. I was just about to say that. It's true. They could be the one who could have the king's ear and they understood how to use that and how to leverage that to the best of their own advantage.

Mike Koelzer: Yes. And then you've got famous people that are famous because they know how to pretend to be somebody in front of a camera they're trying to teach us about. X, whatever X is save the X, and it's like no correlation. Then you've got the same people that are trying to press something because they're getting a little extra cash, again, no correlation you're right on target.

I mean, you're using humor to tell a big story. Well, not always. I mean, not with the jokes and stuff, but I mean, [01:00:00] in general, you're using humor. To tell the truth and no apologies for that. And comes from that deep honesty of humor.

Shane Jerominski: That's what I'm trying to go for. I say it's crazy, but it's crazy. And if

you have an end goal with anything, that's the best part about it. And it comes easy because I am passionate about this profession and I want to help fix some of those problems. And I realize I can't do it alone, so I've tried to build a community of people that support that. And I've always tried to uh, I think it is out there, someone with a big idea or wants to do something, whatever I can do to highlight them and illustrate it. And that's why I think the page works, because it's not always about me. Yes I might be the face of it sometimes, but anybody, I we had GoFundMe pages today for, uh, anybody in the pharmacist community who needs something, we've always tried to support it, and I think that's why people keep coming back, and that's why the Pharmacy Guild only going to grow from here.

I made this bold prediction, [01:01:00] and they always hate me doing this, like, their communications department at IAM says, you stop doing this but I said that I think that the majority of retail pharmacies within 10 years will be unionized, and they said, well, what if we don't deliver on that?

And I said, well, if you shoot for the moon, we'll be unionized. Maybe you'll get halfway there. So

That's been my philosophy so far. And no one ever told me that I was going to do this right now. So I'm hoping that, maybe you could have me back in five years and I'll have a million followers and we'll have changed the profession in some way

Mike Koelzer: Shane, thinking back to the beginning of your social media, what was your reason for doing it? And I'm not talking about the benevolency I'm talking about early on.

Shane Jerominski: yeah I think that everyone has the desire to be heard. And I think

that while pharmacists are speaking all the time, Are they really heard? And that, the

The answer to that is no. We're telling patients about what they should be using or what they should look out for. But no one

ever asked me What I should be doing [01:02:00] and how I feel about it.

 It's a one way conversation so many times and you're

empathizing with other people. So

this was my idea of like, this is how I feel inside, or this is the hyper Shane this is the one screaming you have to be the consummate professional.

A lot of my standup is about this, but you never know what you're going to get when you're in that consultation

window. And you can't say, ah, you're an idiot. Or that is the grossest thing I've ever heard. Those aren't even in,

Those aren't even options. So like, it was just that thing about being able to be seen and to be heard and to

be able to express those emotions, whether it's a crazy emotion, whether it's a, you A negative emotion or whether you want

to tell a story and show your heart because you

can't cry at work sometimes and

that's, 

I think that if I'm being honest with myself, it was more about that. I always liked to be an entertainer. I always liked to tell stories. And I just wanted a larger audience. The people that I was, that I looked up [01:03:00] to in my life, like my great grandmother, she could make everybody feel like the most important person in the room. And I wanted to try and do that on a larger level. Like, to be the guy that you could come there and, like, if you sent me a direct message, I try to answer every single one of them. If anybody wants to talk directly to me, even now that it's bigger, the admins will say, hey, this person wanted to talk to you. I've had people reach

out to me who were like, Ready to commit suicide.

Like I've put that up before and then I Get up in the morning and I'd see this message and I'd be in this mad rush to try and talk to them But if someone cares enough to be like me Well, maybe let me get Shane's advice on this or something that makes you feel like you're connecting with people that

You might be telling jokes on the internet, but you're doing more than that.

Mike Koelzer: Yeah, 

Shane Jerominski: thing that's

what, what makes me keep writing every day,

even if it's something small. 

Mike Koelzer: Shane, golly, what a pleasure to talk to you because first of all you're very personable. 

Shane Jerominski: Thank you. 

Mike Koelzer: to meet you. And it's [01:04:00] interesting for me because you have said it and you don't.

Keep this a secret that a lot of the things that people see are versions of you. So like you said, the pharmacy, that might be your more professional version, and getting up and talking about the pharmacy guild, you have to put your leadership.

Let's go get them hats on. And then the comedy is a version of you, but a little bit more animated. So it's such a pleasure to talk to you. Face to face here and not necessarily go to the extremes of those three, and I'm sure there's a lot more that I mentioned. I appreciate your time, Shane.

You have a hell of a lot of stuff going on. I thank you for spending time with me and our listeners and golly, I look forward to seeing you grow and moving forward with all this stuff.

Shane Jerominski: Well, thank you so much, Mike. It was a pleasure to do this. I always love to have an audience and have someone want to talk to me for an hour. So it was great to be on your show and I look forward to hearing it.

[01:05:00] You've been listening to the Business of Pharmacy podcast with me, your host, Mike Kelser. Please subscribe for all future episodes.