Just what the doctor ordered

By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- When Deborah Profanchik set out to pick a site for her new, independent pharmacy, friends and families told her to go where the money is.
And she thought about it.
The 34-year-old entrepreneur considered the Valley's most affluent neighborhoods and its hottest commercial locations for her business.
Then she followed her heart. She set up shop in the Lincoln Knolls Plaza on Youngstown's East Side.
A Youngstown native, Profanchik said she was determined not to abandon the hundreds of senior citizen patients living in downtown senior complexes whom she had been serving as pharmacist at the Conva-Med Pharmacy in the Phar-Mor Centre. The store closed Aug. 31.
She wanted to help
"I didn't want to leave them high and dry. Even though we had to leave the downtown, I tried to find a place close enough that we could still service them," she said. "It was a heart thing."
Close to 99 percent of the former downtown Conva-Med patients have transferred their prescriptions to her new store, she said, since it opened in Santisi's IGA Sept. 3.
Many make the short drive or take a bus to get there.
For about 100 downtown seniors who can't get out, Profanchik is providing free prescription delivery six days a week. She has a delivery person to handle the trips on weekdays, and on Saturdays she makes the drop-offs herself.
"It's just an extension of what they had downtown. They can't stop in and talk like they did when we were there, but believe me, they call a lot," she said with a wide grin. "It's like having 100 grandparents."
Born in Youngstown, Profanchik spent her growing-up years in Campbell, Boardman and Poland. After graduating from Poland High School, she went to the University of Toledo, where she earned a bachelor's degree in pharmacy in 1992.
Work history
Her first job out of college was at the Conva-Med store in Cornersburg. The store had contracts with several area nursing homes, and she enjoyed working with doctors as a pharmacist consultant and learned to prepare IV medications for the nursing-home patients.
Five years later she joined Family Home Medical on Belmont Avenue, where she established a respiratory pharmacy. Profanchik said she especially liked the close, personal contact she had there with about 400 patients suffering from respiratory ailments, but when the company was bought by a national chain, she decided to make another career move.
She returned to Conva-Med in 2000, this time as the only pharmacist assigned to the downtown Youngstown store.
Business was very slow -- she was filling as few as two or three prescriptions a day at first -- so Profanchik worked with the store owners' marketing department to start up a promotional campaign.
Few people knew the pharmacy was there at first, she explained, but a campaign of leaflets, advertising, radio spots and health fair appearances helped change that. Soon the small drugstore was bustling, and many seniors living in the downtown high-rise apartments were making it a regular hangout.
"The Phar-Mor Centre was their mall," she said. "We had some people who stopped every day just to chat."
Phar-Mor terminations
But foot traffic in the Phar-Mor Centre in general was dwindling. When the financially troubled discount drugstore chain let go nearly all of its corporate employees in the building, Profanchik said she closed her office door to avoid the sad sight of workers leaving their jobs for the last time.
By early summer, Conva-Med officials had decided to close the store. With pharmacists in great demand, Profanchik could likely have taken a job with a national pharmacy chain, but she chose to open her own store instead.
Her parents, Andrew and Ann Marie Profanchik, are small-business owners.
They've operated APCO Construction in Canfield for 30 years, so they were happy to help her with some of the details of establishing a business. APCO also did the remodeling to make room for the pharmacy at the front of the grocery store.
"My Dad was as excited as I was," she said.
Ideal location
She praised the Santisi family for supporting and welcoming her, and she said the grocery store location has been ideal. Many IGA customers have transferred their prescriptions to her, and her customers often buy groceries when they stop in to get their medications.
And East Side residents seem happy to have her. "I would say we have 20 people a day stopping by just to thank us for coming to their community," she said.
Profanchik's signs outside the store say she'll "meet or beat" any competitor's price. It's a promise she can make, she said, because she has lower operating costs than larger, chain pharmacies.
Seniors need insurance
Still, she said, she's shocked and saddened by the number of senior citizens who are without prescription insurance coverage and who struggle to pay skyrocketing drug costs.
"I have one patient who has six prescriptions to fill, and one of them costs more than $200 a month," she said.
"When I gave her my prices, she grabbed my hand and blessed me. It was less than she'd been paying, but I still don't know how she pays it. And the drug companies are still raising their prices. It breaks my heart."
vinarsky@vindy.com