I have a teenager that wasn't feeling well last week. With my amazing skills as a Ninja pharmacist I quickly determined it was just a virus. But I'm not a physician, so I hauled him down to his doctor to make his mother happy.
I get passed a bunch of papers on a clipboard to fill out and sign as we're escorted from the waiting room to the scale and then to an examination room. I'm still filling out papers when another doctor (not his regular physician) steps into the room. She examines him and pronounces it a virus then sits down at the computer to type up a Z-pack prescription "just in case" he needs it later. She sends it off to my pharmacy where I work. I ask her if she noted on the e-Script "do not fill until patient requests" and get told no, she didn't do that. This was a teaching moment, but instead I just let it go.
Besides, she's more interested in asking a bunch of questions which should already be on his chart. So I ask what they have on his history.
"We don't have a history. He's a new patient," she says, but doesn't add "duh" on the end of her sentence. But she's clearly said it with her eyes.
"He sees Dr. Hurried Rabbit. He's seen Dr. Rabbit a dozen times," I reply.
"We don't have any record of your son," she says.
Now I'm starting to understand why I was given a stack of papers to fill out. They think he's a new patient.
She verifies the birthdate of my son with me. They don't have him in the computer. She asks if that's actually his birth date. "I was there," I said. "I can assure you that's when he was born." She asks my son to verify the date as well. He verifies it.
"Are you sure you see Dr. Rabbit?" she asks. I'm sure in her head she thinks I'm an idiot father that can't tie his shoes.
I pull out a prescription bottle of my son's daily medication. I show it to her. It has my son's name on it as well as Dr. Hurried Rabbit's name on it.
She looks at the medicine bottle with disbelief. There in her hands is proof that my son has indeed seen Dr. Rabbit. She's quiet and shakes her head as she walks out of the room.
And there you have it, folks... another reason why patients are pissed off and ready to yell at the pharmacist when they get to the pharmacy!
4 comments:
This has happened to a friend of mine three times when she's gone to her doctor's office. How do they lose the history???
"This has happened to a friend of mine three times when she's gone to her doctor's office. How do they lose the history???"
Cause everything went digital and NOBODY knows how to work a fucking computer. NO ONE! E-scripts are proof of this.
Re: passed teachable moment.
Daughter was dx with an ear infection when she was 3 (we went to rule out strep prior to a holiday weekend). The diagnosis was based on her pain response when she turned her head toward the examiner at the wrong moment and was poked with the scope. She then flinched when he tried the other ear. Offered antibiotics, 'if we wanted them' I took the script and said I'd only fill it if she started acting sicker. Fine, come back in 3 weeks.
(Made the appt the day before, the fever had already dropped, I only kept the appt because hubby is a worrywort and it was coming into a holiday)
She never got sick, I never filled the script but I did take her back in. Same fellow saw her, asked if we finished the course of antibiotics and when I said we didn't get it filled, he lectured me on NOT FINISHING THE BOTTLE and said I was contributing to resistance. Although I repeatedly told him we didn't start it, he wrote a new script since her ears 'still looked red' (um, you said they weren't red the last time, just very tender - due to a scope mishap???) and this time to get it filled and FINISH IT and come back in six weeks.
I did neither.
And then there was the time I brought my then 7 year old son to the doctor thinking he had an ear infection. Doctor said it was just a virus and it would clear up. Turns out it was bacterial meningitis. Fun times.
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