Quinine 300mg

[admin]

Originally Posted by mm45

Yeah i understand, we have had a lot of customers that request specific brands and we always go out of our way as much as possible to get the right brand for the customer. But this lady wasnt even in the pharmacy for the quinine, she was in for another script.. just happened to bring the quinine in from another pharmacy to tell me that the drug company was ripping her off... when i tried to explain she just got uppity about it, so much for people trusting the proffesion.

btw im a him not a her lol

Sorry - I don't know why I thought you were female!

[love]

Originally Posted by admin

Whats going wrong in the hospital? I much preferred my hospital jobs to retail.

hospital isnt that bad bad but i enjoyed community so much more because its a smaller department u get ur regular customers , and i enjoyed working and learning bout otc medicines. i think i have got to get used to the routine of workin in the hospital

[admin]

Love

Ok fair enough, each to their own as they say....

[Amba]

Come on. What's going on? What these people need is to go to a third world country and see the suffering and agony of parents for whom just finding food to feed their children is a daily struggle or to see the population of that country under some despot ruler killing all and sundry for a so called democracy.

In many countries the idea of an NHS system which subsidises their healthcare or the provision of clean water for drinking is just a pipe-dream. We are now told to look at continuity of care because the tablet some patient received was too small even though the explanation was simple it was totally disregarded. Does this not indicate to us that the general public don't perceive us as professionals because they don't trust us when we tell them something? Experts on medicines? Not according to this customer(notice "customer" and not patient/client).

Professional person has clients/patients, shop keeper has customers. When's the last time a doctor or nurse referred to his\her patients as customers?

We are a pseudo-profession. Chin up and fight the good fight. Chalk this one down to experience it may be your first but certainly not your last.

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by Amba

We are now told to look at continuity of care because the tablet some patient received was too small even though the explanation was simple it was totally disregarded. Does this not indicate to us that the general public don't perceive us as professionals because they don't trust us when we tell them something?

No - it's one patient and one pharmacist. How many others don't complain - and believe what they are told (however innacurate)
http://tinyurl.com/oaaqh
"Mrs Gorman assured her that she had been supplied with the correct tablets and said that the change of colour was because the tablets were from a different manufacturer with different packaging."
There's a whole book on harm minimisation in that sentence.

Jeff

[admin]

Jeff

I like the link, but it just scares me to be honest. The guy is up before the statt comm for a dispensing error. Tell me any pharmacist in the whole world who hasn't done one, and I won't believe you. Oh except this guy: -

It was, however, a single error in some 30 years of practice and the committee would restrict its sanction to that of a reprimand.

and that just about sums up the reality of the place the statt comm resides - cloud cookoo land!

[Amba]

Hello Jeff,
whatever you may think about the posts in response to your own but they all seem to be saying 'look at the common sense approach any pharmacist should have in this sort of situation'.

What you have referred to is another incident totally out of sync with the one it started from. We all make mistakes and if you haven't then you are a better pharmacist than i but we just hope that the mistakes we make are rectifiable and don't cause any harm to the patient. Knowing all this you only have to look at the disparity of the treatment by the Stat Comm against any pharmacist,who after all is human, against all the good he may have done in the past. That service is forgotten and they need to be seen to be making an example so as to serve the public. You cannot, and have not, justified to me why we should go to such extremes to satisfy every whim and fancy a client may have just based on the size of a tablet.

You forget, pharmacy is still a business at the end of the day. Would it then make sense to supply branded medicine just because the patient has always in the past had branded but for which you only get paid generic prices? It wouldn't be long before you were out of business.

[admin]

Amba

Will you keep in touch once you start your medical training? It would be really interesting to know your opinion on the differences/similarities in the two courses. I'd love to know if Dr's know as much as they make out. I also wonder wether the "clever dick" attitude a lot of them have is in them in the first place, or is it put there during their course?

Please keep in touch!

[mm45]

Most of them get that attitude from day one of the course if not before.. Near the beginning of my first year we had to do interproffesional learning with all the first year medics well what a lot of fun that was...

But there are some nice ones about.

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by Amba

Hello Jeff,
What you have referred to is another incident totally out of sync with the one it started from.

Continuity of supply. If the generic tablet changes every month it creates both confusion and distrust in some people. The patient wasn't asking for an overpriced brand of quinine sulphate (there isn't one is there?) but a generic that they were familiar with.

We all make mistakes and if you haven't then you are a better pharmacist than i but we just hope that the mistakes we make are rectifiable and don't cause any harm to the patient

I was suggesting that the variation between generics (and PI's) was such that it was a cause of error both for pharmacists and patients - and that issue be addressed rather than ignored.

You cannot, and have not, justified to me why we should go to such extremes to satisfy every whim and fancy a client may have just based on the size of a tablet.

Because in this instance the cost would be minimal - and future profits from a new customer would ofset any initial loss.

You forget, pharmacy is still a business at the end of the day. Would it then make sense to supply branded medicine just because the patient has always in the past had branded but for which you only get paid generic prices? It wouldn't be long before you were out of business.

Agree - but that is not the case in this specific instance - and would in any case at least in part depend on the price difference.
I get a patients gabapentin scripts changed to neurontin because the generic capsules are too big to swallow and the patients hands are too athritic to open the capsules.
No isn't an aceptable answer - a phone call to try and sort something out is IMO much better.

Jeff