Jerry Fahrni

This blog was started one year ago today. During that time I’ve learned a great deal about a great many things and have met some incredibly interesting people along the way. The site doesn’t generate much traffic, which just goes to show you that pharmacists are an interesting group that rarely crawl out of their comfort zone. To date not a single pharmacist that I work with is even aware that this blog exists. I’ve had one nurse and one person from the Quality Assurance department at Kaweah reach out to me about something I’ve posted, but that’s it; funny.

JerryFahrni.com was the brainchild of my brother, Robert. He’s an avid blogger and thought I should join the ranks of other people living in the 21st century by starting a blog and getting involved in the social media scene. I can’t count the number of times he said “you should post that”. I didn’t see the value in blogging at the time, but I do now.  I’m glad he nudged me and I’m glad I took his advice.

I originally wanted to grab cool a URL that had the words pharmacy and/or technology in it, but that soon turned out to be an exercise in futility. I definitely wanted a “dot com” name and every pharmacy/technology name I could think of was taken. Once again my brother came to the rescue and recommended that I simply use my name. I mean how many Jerry Fahrni’s can there be; apparently not too many because the name was available. Just to be clear, I’m not a self-centered egomaniac that needs to see and hear his name all the time. In fact it still sounds strange to my ears to hear the name of the site out loud.

The subject matter was easy to come up with because my job as an IT pharmacist was still new and exciting. In the beginning I felt like a kid on Christmas morning almost every day; still do on many days. The site quickly became a sounding board for me to express my ideas and opinions. It is rarely visited by the outside world with my best day ever barely cracking 200, and most days only a handful of people drop by, but the few people that do offer great opinions and feedback. Not all the feedback has been positive mind you, but valuable nonetheless. Many of the ideas that I thought were the most brilliant were in fact some of my most spectacular failures while some of the simplest things turned into solid ideas. There’s a valuable lesson in that statement somewhere.

One unexpected benefit to the site has been the number of highly intelligent people I’ve met as a result. I love talking with intelligent people in the healthcare and/or technology fields. They always have something to offer. There is no question in my mind that this would have never happened if I had not started blogging when I did. The entire process has been a blessing to me both professionally and personally and I hope it continues down the same path in the future.

Secondary to the people I’ve met, I’ve been able to do some things that I would have never done otherwise. I’ve attended some conferences and given some presentations, been asked to beta test software and hardware and been contacted for ideas regarding various pharmacy related projects all as a direct result of something I posted on this site. In addition I’ve become involved in ASHP beyond just being a member for the first time ever. This has been both educational and exciting to say the least.

I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the people that have taken the time to read my site over the past year, and especially to those of you that have left thought provoking commentary. I will continue blogging as long as I enjoy the process and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. There are simply too many cool things out there for me to talk about.

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