Our job as pharmacists is to dispense the right medication to the right patient and make sure it is correct and appropriate. It's also our job to protect the patient, sometimes from the prescriber or doctor who wrote the prescription.
Above is an example. A careless pharmacist would just type this up as:
Dissolve one and one-half tablet under tongue twice daily as needed for pain.
But a good pharmacist would see the conflicting notes and if he or she didn't know the patient and history, he or she would call the doctor. This careless doctor actually wants the patient to take one tablet in the morning and one-half tablet in the pm.
What would happen if this patient was given incorrect instructions? Probably not much. But with a different drug this could be catastrophic.
Think about that the next time you're pressuring your pharmacist to hurry with your prescription.
"Is Zithromax a controlled substance," he asked as I was filling his prescription for a Z-pack.
"No," I replied. "I know lots of people want a Z-pack for the least little thing, but to my knowledge it has no addictive qualities."
At this point, maybe five minutes has passed since the patient first walked in and I'm in the middle of filling his prescription.
"Oh. I'm going to complain! I asked the doctor's office if they wouldn't mind calling this in for me so it would be ready when I got here," he says in a grumpy tone.
"This office calls in medications all the time," I said.
"The lady told me Zithromax is a controlled substance and I had to hand deliver the prescription," he says. "I'm going to call them up and complain!"
We're now at the seven minute mark and I'm heading toward the register with his Rx ready. He's my first patient of the day and there was no wait. I had his prescription ready in less than ten minutes, but he's mad because the office wouldn't call it in ahead of time for him. He must have one damn important job if he can't wait ten minutes.
Who's to say what really happened at the doctor's office, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what happened. I've had office staff lie to me over the phone. It actually happens all the time. My personal favorite is, "We never received your fax" as I'm hold a fax confirmation in my hand.
Or maybe Zithromax was bumped up to a C-II controlled status and I didn't even know about it?
