Comment by teekert
8 years ago
So true. Recently I was at the pharmacy, the doctor wrote a wrong prescription and my wife was in the car having a hefty migraine. They wouldn't give me the drug even though they could see she has been using it for years and the wrong prescription could be solved afterwards. I think such people will be the first to be completely replaced by robots, I for sure wouldn't notice the difference, in fact I expect a robot to be inhuman so it would be less frustrating.
Okay this example makes sense. No prescription == no drugs (especially for painkillers and other things that people abuse).
If you think this is a bad thing, then it's an organizational problem and has nothing to do with computers.
If you are a human and you can see in the computer that the prescription is regularly updated and you can even call the doctor if you doubted it. You can even check the prescription afterwards and if my story doesn't check out, do something about it. The migraine was pretty bad, imo it was like not treating a broken leg because of a missing insurance card or something.
There are very good reasons why a doctor might decide to change a prescription for someone, and listening to the patient over the doctor in some of those cases would not only be a bad idea, it could be potentially fatal or cause long lasting problems.
For example:
- Evidence of abuse of a drug.
- A second prescription which interacts badly with the first.
- Changing health circumstances (pregnancy, some sort of deficiency, failing internal systems, etc).
The correct thing to do in a case like this is to stop and coordinate with the prescribing physician. Having a pharmacist look at some change compared to how things were done prior and have a patient tell them it's a mistake and they should ignore it without consulting the prescribing physician is almost never a good idea.
You're really blaming the wrong people. Blame the doctor for screwing it up, your wife for not checking the prescription, or the government for creating/enforcing the relevant laws that would have put not only the chemist but their entire franchise underground for "doing the right thing". Laws are laws, broskie, don't expect everybody to break them for you.
If the migraine was really bad (bad enough to cause tangible damage) maybe you should sue the doctor for damages, or if it wasn't that bad, report him/her and go somewhere else next time.
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Note the irony in saying the pharmacist should have trusted the machine while ignoring the established rules.
Hell, most humane countries do it like that way already. My pharmacist parents in Norway wouldn’t have a problem with this, based on anecdotes over the years.
That's more about CYA. The pharmacist would risk a lot by giving out the medicine without proper prescription. They may know it's OK, but they won't risk an overzealous prosecution, for example.
Except you are asking that pharmacist to break the law. If they got fired afterward, would you be the one to take them and their family in?
Pharmacists can legally dispense in emergencies.
Do they do it--no!
It's too bad what we have evolved into--uncaring, and hardened.
As to robots--I don't care. At least I know the robot will call doctors for refills, and get the right meds in the container.
I wouldn't do that either. Because if I did that in the wrong instance, I would be fired. I'm sorry for your wife's migraines, but it's not worth me losing my ability to support my family.
Don't blame the people, blame the system. They're not uncaring, but if there's some kind of mistake and the audit trail shows it was them who didn't follow procedure, guess who it is whose now out of a job? They've got a wife and kid to feed too.