Laws and Protocols

A pleasant British lady comes to the pharmacy counter.

"I'm in a bit of a tittle," she states. "I have come all the way to your United States and forgotten my heart medication."

She had forgotten her Flecainide. I guess I'm just an old annoyed pharmacist at this point in my career, but I simply don't understand how anyone leaves their medication behind. That's what keeps you alive, dude. Why isn't it your number one priority when you're packing? Even as I'm writing this I'm shaking my head. I'm disgusted. You people that forget your medication... you disgust me. (Not really, don't get your panties all twisted up in knots and send me hate mail).

So I tell her that we can't just hand out medication to anyone who asks for it. 

Wouldn't that be great, though? Imagine the line of people for their freebies, all having become dependent on free hand outs and developing "you owe me" attitudes. Imagine the hit this would be on the economy as more and more people line up for their free medicine. Oh, wait... we already DO have that now. It's called Medicaid. Never mind.

Anyway, I tell Miss Tittle that she needs to see a local doctor who will prescribe the medication and we can fill it for her. "Oh, but my local dispenser does this for me all the time," she states. I guess in Great Britain the pharmacists have more prescribing authority than here in the colonies, huh?

I tell her we have laws and protocols, explaining again how it works here. She trots off, seeming to understand.

THE NEXT DAY she's back. She reaches into her purse to get what I hope will be a prescription for Flecainide. No. Life is never that easy. She pulls out her iPad and pulls up an email from her doctor back home which states that it is ok for me to give her Flecainide 100mg. It's not even typed up as a prescription... rather it is just a letter, on an iPad, telling me to hand her over some Flecainide.

Now keep in mind that this lady is very pleasant, courteous, and kind. She's persistent that I'm just going to give her the medicine she needs, but she doesn't listen to instructions well. I can only imagine what happens on the other side of the world when a rude American forgets their medication and gets belligerent at the local apothecary, especially if it was free for them here.

I explain it, again. She says she understands, again. And I assume the Urgent (S)care place we sent her gave her some samples of Flecainide because when she came by to tell us everything was good she did not have a prescription.