I’m the last person you’d want dispensing medication. Valium is my solution to everything (except, possibly, the fact that I am currently about to fall asleep on my keyboard.)
Actually, there have been suits filed over errors resulting from bad handwriting. I’m not sure how the liability would be spread out, but the rule of thumb (at least as I was taught) is that if you can’t read it, and you can’t puzzle it out, you call the doctor for clarification, and note that you did so.
However, many hospitals and some pharmacies have gone to a computer-based system for entering medications that has reduced medication errors dramatically. In fact, the system that my current clinic uses (and that I’ve used in the past), is virtually foolproof. The only errors that can be made are human: The doctor enters the wrong drug, or the pharmacy fills the wrong drug. The system helps tag ordering mistakes by requiring dosages to be entered as well; if I couldn’t get the number of tablets to come out either evenly or with a half-tablet, the chart got flagged for a clarification for either the drug or the dosage.
Robin
Also helping to avoid handwriting-related errors is that many doctor’s offices call in the prescriptions by phone and mail the script. My office does that a lot, and I expect it’s a lot less likely to get screwed up if I call the pharmacy with the Rx information, so they know exactly what the patient needs, rather than just having the patient bring them a scrawled script.
In any case, Rx pads do have the provider’s phone number on them, so if there’s a problem reading the script, they can call and ask (as MsRobyn mentioned).
Talking about errors and doctors’ handwriting: One of the many reasons I continue to go to my local pharmacist after 30 years (gasp – can I really be that old?) is that I know if he or his employees don’t understand a doctor’s handwriting, they will question it, call up as necessary, and/or ask me about it. If it’s initially not clear what the thing is and what it’s for, they won’t fill it until they are sure. They have been known to call me aside and ask me confidentially what medX is for, to be sure that I know about possible side effects, etc. If a med has been repackaged (same substance, different size, shape, coating color, or package color) they insert a note explaining this. If anything looks not quite right I am encouraged to question it, and they thank me for it. Ditto for “is this stuff from last year still good?” If I’m not sure about possible interactions or side effects, there is a real expert available. Definitely NOT just a “pill-counter.”
Of course, most of the time none of this is necessary, which is a good thing. Just as with doctors, a lot of times we are paying for the years spent acquiring what they know, not the 5 minutes they spend using that knowledge.
There was a lawsuit a couple of years ago involving a Rite-Aid.
From here. IIRC, it was because of the doctor’s messy handwriting, combined with the fact that the pharmacist was overworked and rushed. Now, the pharmacist should have called to verify what the prescription was written for, and should have told the patient’s mother that it could not be filled until it was verified. (Do you know how hard it is to reach a doctor on a Saturday, or after 5 PM? Even if they have a paging service, it’s no guarentee that you’ll get called back.)
At Wal-Mart, as a pharmacist you are allowed three misfills a year. It sounds like a lot, but something as simple as having Dr. John Smith as opposed to Dr. Bob Smith is considered a misfill if it is dispensed to the patient. You are required to report your misfills to your pharmacy manager, who in turn reports them to the district manager. The first misfill is a verbal warning, the second a written one, and if you happen to make three misfills in a year, you get to spend your ENTIRE VACATION in lovely downtown Bentonville, Arkansas. There you will be “re-trained” to be the eagle-eye that you should be, spotting errors a mile away while filling upwards of 2.5 prescriptions a minute, answering the phone, taking prescriptions from doctors, calling insurance companies, ordering from the warehouse, fighting Medicaid, counseling each patient for every new prescription, getting help for the people who need something in other departments, writing schedules for technicians, and doing all the paperwork associated with being a pharmacist. Is there any wonder why a lot of Wal-Mart pharmacists filed a class-action lawsuit regarding getting paid for the work they do? (My first manager used to come in at 7:30 AM to just get a jump start on the day, which began at 9AM and ended at 7PM.)
Whew! Why yes, I’m a bitter former employee of Wal-Mart. Can you tell? (I went through 4 pharmacy managers in my 9 years at Wal-Mart. I’m obviously a glutton for punishment for staying that long.)
Right. I agree with everyone here – the pay is great. The hours are long, the pace is fast, the stress is high. It’s 2 years of pre-pharmacy plus 4 years of pharmacy school, which really didn’t seem that long when I was going through it.
It’s a great job in terms of not having to take any work home, and not being expected to work extra hours while making a fixed salary.
It’s bad because salary doesn’t grow in proportion with seniority. You have to stand up all day. It’s not everything they tell you it’s going to be in pharmacy school, and it does place equal emphasis on the conflicting priorities of speed and accuracy.
I work in a retail pharmacy. It’s what I wanted to do going in… I never wanted to be doing order-entry in a basement level hospital pharmacy, which is what I saw on most of my work experiences in hospitals. I don’t love my job, but it pays well (especially for someone only 3 years out of school), and I could always do it part-time if I come across anything better.
My dad is a pharmacist, and he told me not to go into the field. Echos what alot of people here are saying. The pay is good (He makes $40/hr, plus benefits), but the stress is high and he hates his job and has alot of regrets. he says he wishes he had gone to vet school in retrospect. He also takes tons of those OTC vitamins which are supposed to relieve stress. Damn. id take a $12/hr job i loved over a $40/hr job i hate anyday (i dont plan to have kids so that is a factor in my decisions).
I crashed on a pharmacist’s couch for a couple months years ago. We always asked him if he’d bring treats home for us, and he said there’s virtually no way to pull it off unless you own the pharmacy or something. He was pretty laid back, owned his own home in the mountains, and generally liked what he did, but he had to get his drugs on his own.
Me? [Cheech & Chong voice] A little bit for the patient…a little bit for the pharmacist…a little bit MORE for the pharmacist…a little bit MORE for the pharmacist…[/Cheech & Chong voice]