I thought that would be the case, but wanted to check. It makes sense really…
The idea that pharmacists should just dispense drugs without questions is silly. As has been pointed out they actually are better informed than doctors on drug interactions and possible side effects. It is possible for someone to get perscriptions from more than one source and not be aware of interactions. It is possible that the perscription is from a less than ethical doctor. There is a reason pharmaicists have to be licensed and have to go such intensive training.
While I don’t agree with a paharmacist using their moral qualms to dictate which drugs tey will dispense, I have no problem with using their professional judgement in other cases.
I totally agree with this, the problem though is that a law or rule against the moral qualms, will end up affecting the professional judgement. What is to stop some addict from complaining saying the pharmacist had moral problems when they refused to fill their methadone script? It might end up where the pharmacist will fill anything just because they don’t want to risk a lawsuit, loosing their licence, fines, or jailtime, whatever the politicians say the penalty is.
No, I don’t think you should be forced, but then I also think you shouldn’t be working in a prison that conducts executions, either, knowing that you are assisting in one way or the other. I think if you are holding views that are in direct conflict with the law of the land, you need to be more discriminating about where you choose to work. With regard to the electrician, every time he fixes power to the building that performs executions, he’s assisting indirectly. Every time the pharmacist fills a (Pfizer) prescription, he’s supporting the (Plan B) stuff. The best way to separate yourself is to remove yourself from the industry; not make it impossible for others to follow their own moral compass.
I’m not so sure the pharmacist doesn’t.
I wonder who’d win in a Muslim Cabbie vs. Priest Carrying Holy Wine cage match.
Well, particularly in the case of Plan B…I can see this working counter to the pharmacist’s master plan. Suppose he doesn’t hand it over and the woman becomes pregnant. She may be someone who would have to abort in order to save her own life. Wouldn’t he be directly responsible for either of those outcomes? Could he be criminally responsible for her death?
Well, I’ll indulge this sidetrack a little longer, just to say that you’re wrong. I worked at Burger King as a matter of fact. The cashier does not touch meat. I don’t know if you noticed, but the cashier does not hand you a plain patty of beef with his/her bare hands. The patties that go in the freezer are boxed. We had a seperate person doing the french fries. Even if you didn’t, putting the person on the register would solve the problem. And when did I say inventory was a seperate job?
I disagree. Let’s say cashier Marge refuses to sell Plan B. Let’s say it’s 4:30 pm, and Marge is running the register. A woman comes in and says, “I need to buy Plan B.” Marge has to go find another cashier, interrupt what that person is doing, and get the other person to take over the register for one customer, and leaving Marge with nothing to do but stand there and wait until the transaction is finished. So you lose productivity for 2 employees and inconvenience the customer at the register and every customer in line behind that customer. And if the other employee was helping a customer, that customer is inconvenienced as well.
And then let’s say cashier Dave refuses to sell homeopathic medicine because he considers it to be quackery. Do we accomodate him as well? Or do we at some point say, “If you can’t do your job, then go home”?
And when I go to a commercial pharmacy, it’s already difficult to get help from behind the counter. There’s usually a line, and often only one or two employees seem to be on the job.
It’s not a “scheduling request”; it’s a person who refuses to ever sell a particular product. I would probably ask up front, at the job interview: “Are there any products that you would have a problem selling?” Then I would take that into consideration when I decide which candidate to hire. What’s so hard about that?
I mean, have you ever worked retail? Believe me, when I worked retail jobs, if I had ever said, “Gee, boss - I can’t sell this particular product”, my ass would have hit the pavement so quick all you’d see was a blur.
No, I didn’t say I thought you were pro-life; I just think you’re trying to prove how “reasonable” you are, which is a personal motivation, not a business one. There is not a single store manager I ever worked for who would put up with even one tenth of that kind of nonsense. When I was working my way up the food chain, it was: “Here’s the schedule - you can work these days, or you can go to the unemployment office”.
It has nothing to do with my being particularly reasonable, it has to do with the difficulty I had in finding enough people to staff my phone room…it was a constant battle to have enough staff, and to be just enough of a hardass about stuff to be sure my shifts were covered, but not so much of a hardass that I had to constantly train new people. I don’t consider letting good workers go over small issues to be a great management style, but YMMV.
Yes. Because what’s to say the next day it won’t be something else that I refuse to do. What if I’m a vegetarian and refuse to work on the grill because its used to cook meat? My morals shouldn’t be what is at question here. The job duties are. You can’t refuse to do part of your job just because you think it might be morally questionable because the fact of the matter is that morals aren’t universal. If I don’t feel comfortable doing one of my job duties, I should either learn to live with it, look for another job where I didn’t have to perform that specific duty, or look for another line of work altogether.
A. What did I say that’s not true?
B. Being a physician requires EIGHT years. Twice as much.
C. I pointed out that one can take an on-line course to be a Pharmacy Technician, and be qualified to dispense drugs, and you completely ignored that. We’re talking about people putting their judgment above a doctor’s, and those people can be in a position to dispense drugs after having taken only an on-line course.
If that’s not you, then I’m not talking about you.
You don’t.
Pharmacy technicians are required to have a high school diploma or GED, and (in Arizona) to pass an exam. The course that helps you pass the exam is available by correspondence. Techs do not require a college degree, and most don’t have one. (I did know one who had a degree in music, and another who had a degree in English.)
Entry-level pharmacy degrees (now a Pharm. D. or doctor of pharmacy degree, which doesn’t make you a medical doctor–that’s an M.D. or D.O. degree) take six years of college. Those are most emphatically NOT available online or by correspondence. The courses to which you are referring are for the ADD-ON Pharm. D. degree, which can be taken by anyone who already has the Bachelor of Science degree or BS Pharm, the old entry-level 5-year degree (which I have). It’s a way of updating a 5-year degree to the newer 6-year degree. It’s useful if you want to be a clinical pharmacist in a hospital setting, or if you are interested in hospital management. There is NOTHING to my knowledge available online that lets you get a full pharmacy degree if you are starting from a high school diploma only.
Answering the OP (as I did in the old thread): there are plenty of pharmacist jobs that don’t involve dispensing birth control pills. In my state, 20% or so work in hospitals. Others work for drug companies, doing research or sales. If you don’t want to dispense birth control, don’t. But don’t take a job at Walgreens and bitch that you don’t want to do your job. I think the vegan who wants to work at BK but won’t touch meat is an excellent analogy. Isn’t there anyplace else you could work?
Theobroma, R.Ph.
Sorry, I meant 11 to 16 years of training to be a doctor.
Let me try to clarify this whole thing in a way that is relevant in some way to the OP.
I am of the opinion that the owner of the hypothetical pharmacy would be COMPLETELY WITHIN HIS RIGHTS to fire a worker of any kind (or not hire them in the first place) who would not dispense Plan B, if the policy of the pharmacy was to sell it.
I am also of the opinion that the owner of the hypothetical pharmacy would be COMPLETELY WITHIN HIS RIGHTS not to fire a worker (or not hire them in the first place) who would not dispense Plan B, if the policy of the pharmacy was to sell it.
I believe that the owner of the hypothetical pharmacy could easily take EITHER position, regardless of his own opinion that Plan B is perfectly moral, based on what he thinks is the easiest/smartest thing to do for his business. If the worker who won’t dispense/sell Plan B is lucky enough to find an employer who will put up with it, more power to them. If not, they are SOL and had better find a different line of work.
The bottom line is that is is really up to the employer here (subject of course to negotiated agreements with organized labor, etc.). If the employer feels that they can adequately provide customer service and grant exceptions based on employee choice, then that’s their call to make. If they decide they can’t make that sort of accomodation, then you get canned for it.
My personal belief is that the pharmacist should be required to provide such medication as a condition of its licensing. If the pharmacy owner can ensure that any customer has access to an employee that will supply said medication at all times when the store is open, then I don’t care if they allow people to chose not to sell it, as the consumer is not inconvenienced.
However, we then get to the problem situation where this is removed from the hands of the employer, or the employer in negotiation with the employee representatives. You are now required to make ‘reasonable accomodations’ for people’s religious preferences. Hence seniority in shift allocation gets overruled to be replaced with a priority for ‘religious’ reasons. In essence, someone who claims to want Sunday off to go to church is given priority over someone who wants Sunday off to go to Fed Ex Field and watch the Skins.
The same situation is developing with this pharmacist situation. Those who refuse to dispense legal medications not only want the right to have the pharmacist chose not to stock it, but also want the right to have individual employees protected from discipline for refusal to sell, when it is corporate policy to sell. And that’s BS.
Well I didn’t say there was. But at any rate, your point is taken. This does not change the fact that one can be qualified to dispense drugs via a correspondence course. One CANNOT practice as a physician via a correspondence course.
Unless he’s Catholic, I can’t imagine that he would. I always thought that Protestantism prided itself on not having a corollary to the Pope.
Well, except for those who worship at the Church of Jesus Christ - A Tiny Little Division of Falwellco©.
If, however, the pharmacist in question is Catholic, then a thousand pardons.
No, sorry, still wrong. Pharmacy technicians can’t legally dispense…only pharmacists can. That’s why every prescription has to have initials or some other sign-off of approval by a pharmacist.
(Just clarifying the sidetrack: in this state, anyway, NOBODY can legally dispense prescription medications without an actual, factual college degree.)
I don’t know why it makes a difference…I still say that an employer should be legally able to fire anyone who is unwilling to perform the job as required. Throwing these people in jail is overkill; they should be fired, and allowed to practice in their field, at another job, as they wish.
If a doctor, lawyer, or contractor is found to have acted in an unethical manner, his punishments may very well include loss of license, fines, and arrest. If a pharmacist acts unethically, why should his penalties be any different?
Just for the record, I’m not talking about a pharmacist using his objective, professional knowledge to deny a patient a product. I’m talking about a pharmacist who lets his personal moral code to get in the way of others’ access to legal products.