The Pharmacy America Trusts

Until a few years ago “The Pharmacy America Trusts” was part of our Walgreens logo for almost twenty years. Although it was a pretty lofty claim to make, it spoke of our scale and what we like to think that sets us apart.

  Back in the late 80’s, an incident occurred in one of our San Francisco stores that illustrates this. One of the folks in the pharmacy discovered that one of the automated pill dispensers had been previously replenished with the wrong drug and we had possibly been dispensing it to our patients.  The key principle of all medical ethics is “Do no harm”. So the first questions werewhich patients, how many, what was possible medical impact on their condition.  At the same time, corporate leadership was alerted and corporate resources sprang into action, too. 

     The president of the company at the time was Fred Canning.  He assembled pharmacy officers, experts and executive leadership in the Board Room to sort through alternatives and any additional response we should make.  The good news came back that the wrong drug would not have resulted in any material health impact.  The relief was visible.

     Now the issue became: what do we do?  The publicity of the error might be horrendous. Regulatory authorities might close us down. An easy way out might have been to replace the drug, notify the affected patients and downplay the error.  Fred Canning, without missing a beat, said, “Here’s what we are going to do: we’re going to pull in all the pharmacy supervisors and pharmacists we have to and we’re are going to call every patient that we might have mis-dispensed to and let them know what happened.  If we have to, we’ll go to their homes to let them know.  And before the sun is down, we’re going to have our pharmacy execs on a plane to California to meet with Board of Pharmacy and tell them what we have done.”

   And in a defining moment, he concluded with a simple and powerful statement: “This may break our company but it is the right thing to do.”

     In the end it is not what we say about ourselves that defines us, it is what we do.