Write it Down!

A patient calls during a busy time of the day to tell me that she and her doctor decided they would go ahead and try her on some Ketorolac. The patient had stated in the past to having a strong allergic reaction to the medication. Having tried everything else to treat her pain issues, the doctor talked her into trying again. The lady has a tendency to exaggerate her medication allergies, so I thought it was appropriate.

So while I'm doing two things at the same time, she tells me the doc will be sending over a new script and that I should fill it even though her profile says she has an allergy to it. She even spelled Ketorolac for me because she couldn't pronounce it. To be honest, though, I should say she misspelled it but I knew what she meant. I have grand mind-reading skills. She continues to blabber on for another minute then asks if I understood what she meant.

"Ok, enough said. I got it. We don't need to discuss this further. I have stuff to do," I'm thinking. All I can muster out, however, is "Yes."

"Did you write it down?" she asked.

"Write what down?" I respond.

"What I just told you."

She then proceeds to start telling me the ENTIRE thing again, from start to finish. She's about ten seconds into when I stop her and tell her I have it... don't worry about it... I'll take care of it.

Then she did it again.

"Did you write it down?" she asked, again.

Now at this point I'm getting ticked off, but I decide to take the path of least resistance...

"Yes," I respond.

And there you have it, folks. We're pharmacists with doctorate degrees in pharmacy. We handle dangerous medications all day long, making sure people get the right drug, dose, and regimen. We're the LAST link in the healthcare chain to protect the patient... but we're also a bunch of kids in Kindergarten that need to "write it down" when the patient tells us to.

And this is YET another REASON why I'm CRAZY RxMan.