An illegal order is an illegal order. If the pharmacist wants to play health care practitioner like they are trying to do — then perhaps they ought to act according to the mantle they wish to carry. I get to work with very good pharmacists in the ICU, however there are definitely some (especially out patient and retail) that like to play god and think they can not fill physician orders. It really is annoying. And I believe they also are looking for limited prescriptive authority (give vaccine etc) I think it is the continued erosion of medicine. All non-physicians want the rights and privilege to practice, but want to stick us physicians with all the liability.
It gives the pharmacists the fig-leaf of the Nuremberg defense.
Interesting observation. We had a large-grocery-chain pharmacist hold my dad’s prescription hostage because they did not get official word from the doctor (who probably just neglected to send fax on Friday; Lord I hate weekends).
He was just out of the hospital from bypass surgeries - like 5 weeks of recover/rehab. He has been epileptic for 60 years and on phenobarb/dilantin for almost all that. Of course they put him on Coumadin to prevent clotting, and pharmacist was pissing at me that they interact and needed doc.
I got angry right back because as I stated, he is in more danger not having his ep meds than the clotting, and he’s been on Coumadin before c. 2000 for years. If he doesn’t have his ep I KNOW he’s going to seize and who knows what that’ll do to the delicate condition he’s in! Wench finally gave me some with an angry smirk on her face. Rules, yeah, but I know more abut it and I’m fighting for my dad!