Sorry. When I say “medical professional”, I mean medical doctor. A pharmacist has a PharmD. Not an M.D.
Keeping this in the realm of medical care, I believe there is an obligation on the part of all physicians to provide urgent/emergency medical care if they are qualified to do so, or at the least to facilitate such care rapidly. With Plan B we are talking about emergency contraception.
Even if you believe (and this is not a generally accepted belief) that pharmacists are an equal party to the physician-patient relationship and have “conscience” rights that can trump the patient’s rights, this should not apply to situations in which medication to fulfill an emergency need is lawfully prescribed.
While I am not an OB-GYN, I can see no reason for the pharmacist to grill the nurse on whether the patient had had an abortion, as opposed to bleeding or having the risk thereof after delivering a baby. Refusing to prescribe a drug without more history might be valid if the history (such as being on an interfering medication) had a direct bearing on the prescription. But the cited Idaho case reeks of intolerable pharmacist presumption.
Or imagine this scenario:
A guy suffers a back injury. Painkillers are prescribed. He goes into a Walgreen’s with an Rx for 30 Vicodin and the pharmacist looks at his tired face, the two kids at his side, the shabby jacket and thinks, “Oh, he’s just a drug addict.” Pharmacist dispenses drug. Twenty eight days later the guy comes back with another Rx for Vicodin plus something for sleep (no automatic refills on Vicodin). The pharmacist sees his history and goes, yeah, it’s against my conscience to support your habit.
It’s a conspiracy is it?
Um… really? No idea?
Because the Illinois Healthcare Right of Conscience Act seems like its relationship to the issue is pretty obvious:
$750 split among three state Republican Committees where the issue was hot, $250 per state.
The problem that I see with this is who are you or anyone else to tell people what should be part of their “profession”? And also is it fair to ban someone from doing work they are otherwise qualified to do when your idea of what their profession should entail does not match up with theirs.
I think a person’s “profession” should be between them and their employer. So long as they are qualified to do the things that they choose to do, and abide by whatever regulations that are in place, I don’t think it is really anyone else’s business if they choose to not do other things that may be seen as their “profession”.
To require otherwise brings us back to the darker days of McCarthyism, where people were blacklisted from professions for not having the “correct” political beliefs. How is it not discriminatory to say that people with pro-life or any other convictions cannot in any circumstances be pharmacists? If someone can find employment that matches their beliefs (a big if in some cases), I don’t think it should be the role of the government to tell people what is is necessary part of their job.
Calculon.
If that’s the case, then I should be allowed to sue my pharmacist for any oversight. Right?
Of course not!
ffs, you wanna be a research pharmacist, go get a job at a university or pharmaceutical company. You wanna be a doctor, then go get an M.D.
Penicillin pushers at my local Walgreen’s shouldn’t have a say in what they feel is medically appropriate for whatever condition/problem I have.
So while I agree with the rest of your post, I don’t see how a pharmacist should have the right to make that decision alone. You can always call the prescribing doctor. Besides - too many drugs are used off label.
Dangerous viewpoint. When a person’s job has the potential to directly interfere with the welfare and safety of others, I disagree.
What if you had a religious (any religion - not picking on anyone here) police officer who didn’t want to arrest a man who beat his wife because the officer thought the man was within his rights?
Or a District Attorney who didn’t want to prosecute?
I am not an OB-GYN either, but I can certainly see reasons why this may be relevant. If the internal bleeding was caused by an abortion rather than some other medical issue, different drug treatments may be indicated. The pharmacist therefore needs to know the reason for the bleeding to determine the best treatment.
To me the case speaks not of intolerable pharmacist presumtion, but of offensive planned parenthood nurse combativeness. Medical professionals should IMHO share information about relevant cases. The planned parenthood nurse started this situation by refusing to give relevant information to the pharmacist that the patient themselves selected to dispense their medication.
Calculon.
I’m only asking this because I don’t know, not because I’m challenging you, but does the reason the person is prescribed the med come into play here? I 100% understand the pharmacist asking what other meds the person is on so they can check for interactions, I have no problem with that. But how often does the pharmacist say “Wait, why are you on this? Oh, you can’t take it for that, it’ll make you sicker/dead”
If that does come up often enough, it seems the work around would be (if the patient doesn’t want to explain why they are given the med) for the pharmacist to call the doctors office and say “If you prescribed the med for this of this reason, I’d suggest that you switch to a different drug since this one has shown to make the case worse” or something along those lines. The doctor could then listen to the information from the pharmacist and either give him a new script or tell him to fill it as written without having to explain anything. This would also help eliminate pharmacists calling up a doctor to say “Ohh, she’s taking it for post-abortion, yeah, I’m not gonna fill it then”
I want to say that all pharmacists should fill all scripts as written provided they stock the drug and it’s safe/correct, if they don’t want to dispense it, don’t stock it. They shouldn’t be picking and choosing who they give it too. The problem I can see if/when something like that become law is that some of these pharmacists will manage to find studies to back up the things they don’t want to dispense. I’ll bet if you look at the prescribing information and the testing for the emergency contraceptive in question at least one person died or became very sick or hospitalized etc… Is that a good enough reason for a pharmacist to not dispense it, clearly it’s not safe for someone in your condition?
Having said all that, I’m going to go back to what I said earlier. ISTM the best thing to do when there is a question about a drug would be to call the prescribing doctor give him the info and let him make the decision (provided we aren’t talking about a drug interaction).
I also remember hearing a few years ago that all pharmacies were required to carry all common drugs. Is that still the case? Are these emergency contraceptives considered common? The reason I wonder about that is because I’m sure some people are embarrassed enough to have to go and get this filled, the last thing they want to do is have to go around to multiple pharmacies to find it.
A pharmacist does not treat patients with internal bleeding. A doctor does.
Then they should be fired. I am not suggesting that people’s employment should be protected, only their right to practice their profession as they see fit. What is usually suggested is that pharmacists who refuse to dispense birth control or other such things should be entirely barred from practicing pharmacy alltogether. That I think is going too far.
I also think that if people choose to do something, they should adhear to all of the regulations that pertain to doing that thing. So if you choose to do something, you have to do it safely. However you can choose not to do something entirely and that is also fine.
Calculon.
From this logic, why bother having doctors at all. It seems like you don’t trust them to prescribe correct meds.
I would hope an OBGYN knows what med to give someone post-abortion vs internal bleeding.
Where does it stop? Should a pharmacist second guess every single script that every single patient shows up with?
Of course. You do know that there is a nationwide effort to illegalize abortion? To punish women who want one, and to terrorize and kill doctors for providing them. These are not obscure facts.
I’m one of the people risking injury or death if pharmacists can prescribe according to dogma instead of medical fact, that’s who.
Then why was she in the pharmacy with a prescription for “Methergine, a medicine used to prevent or control bleeding of the uterus following childbirth or an abortion”?
Calculon.
Are you serious?
ETA (if you are). She had an abortion.
You’re the one that brought up internal bleeding.
Doctors are the experts in diagnosing illnesses that the patients have. Pharmacists are the experts in drug therapies for different conditions. Pharmacists rely on doctors to tell them what is wrong with a patient. Doctors rely on pharmacists to make sure that the patient has the best drug therapy. As a patient I trust them both. However I would take the word of a pharmacist over a doctor when it comes to best drug therapy for my diagnosed condition.
Doctors are not some sort of medical gods that know everything there is to know. Like many people they are specialists in some things, but not others.
BTW in this case the prescibing health care professional was not an OBGYN, but a nurse practicioner.
Calculon.
According to the article, the prescription drugs she was seeking are used for controlling or preventing bleeding of the uterus. Says so right there in the article.
I don’t get what your objection is. She was clearly including the pharmacist in her overall treatment, therefore the pharmacist needs to know the details of her case. If she didn’t want them involved she should go to another pharmacy.
Calculon.
My scrips usually say something along the lines of the drug name and how much and when to take (either how often or “for pain”/“for rash” etc…"
I’ve never, never, never ever had doctor diagnose me with something and then tell me to ask the pharmacist for his recommendation on a drug therapy.
Occasionally, the script will mention the diagnoses, but I’d say it’s less then 50% of the time.
Not when they start prescribing according to dogma. Then they are less trustworthy than some hypothetical drug vending machine, since at least the machine isn’t deliberately trying to harm you.
The very behavior you are trying to defend destroys the argument you are using. You can’t defend someone by an appeal to expert knowledge when the whole problem is his refusal to adhere to that knowledge.