Doctors: A rant from Pharmacy employees

[Sapphire Silk]

I carry a list of all medications I take and my blood type. When I was in the hospital they got my medications all screwed up. The nurses were on the phone yelling at the doctors that I can't just stop taking some of my medications while I'm in the hospital since it was dangerous to just cut the meds off like that.

The nurses had to fight tooth and nail to get all the medications I take ordered for me so I didn't have to go through harsh withdraws. I tried to give the hospital my list of medications when I signed in for the surgery but they told me they didn't need it.

I'm glad to hear your nurses did their job re your meds. I'm not pleased to hear the hospital didn't want to take your list of meds. Joint Commission requires something called "medication reconciliation." That is, they have to ask for a list of what you are currently taking and reconcile it with whatever meds they plan to give you in the hospital and what you will take when you get home. The idea is to ensure issues like withdrawal from meds that shouldn't be stopped suddenly, or that are incompatible, don't happen.

If that ever happens again, ask, "Aren't you supposed to do medication reconciliation on EVERY admission, no matter what the reason?"

I hate having to stand behind someone who is asked for $5 for the brand name medication that I would have to pay $100 for and they freak the hell out that it's their last $5 but they drive a much better car than I do and have all the luxuries dripping off of them while screaming obscenities at their kid and throwing the candy bar the child just had in it's hand and was chewing on back in the sale rack.

I hear ya there. I used to get very frustrated in the ER with parents complaining they couldn't afford Tylenol for their kids fever even as they reeked of alcohol and cigarettes.

[Misanthropical]

Panacea My nurses were mad as hell that I came up from surgery without the morphine pump I was suppose to have. I didn't get any pain medication till much later that night and then it wasn't nearly strong enough. The nurses kept calling the doctor to up the amount but that wasn't done till much later in the night on Tuesday.

I know my nurses wrote up my doctors for that since every time they saw me I was crying from all the pain and begging them for relief. I compare what I went through on those two days as what hell would be like.

The only complaint I have about the nurses is with how they put IVs in because when I was there they had to keep moving the IV because of the damage done to the site the IV was at.

[Sapphire Silk]

Panacea My nurses were mad as hell that I came up from surgery without the morphine pump I was suppose to have. I didn't get any pain medication till much later that night and then it wasn't nearly strong enough. The nurses kept calling the doctor to up the amount but that wasn't done till much later in the night on Tuesday.

I know my nurses wrote up my doctors for that since every time they saw me I was crying from all the pain and begging them for relief. I compare what I went through on those two days as what hell would be like.

The only complaint I have about the nurses is with how they put IVs in because when I was there they had to keep moving the IV because of the damage done to the site the IV was at.

I'm glad they wrote the docs up. It's just unacceptable that should happen.

There have been several instances where I had to threaten calling the chief of staff (the hospital's top doc) to get the docs to do what they should have done in the first place

I've seen back surgery patients in the ER. They were all in excruciating pain. Watching their experiences have me scared to death of back surgery. I hope to god I never have to have it.

I hope you are feeling better, and get permanent relief from your pain with this surgery. How are you doing?

[ShinyGreenApple]

MOAR dumb doctors today.

Case the first - Patient comes to buy an over the counter appetite suppressant that her Dr. specifically told her to get. Lactinex. The patient is lactose intolerant. So she got home with the bottle, saw the warning on it, and returned the drug. Technically we're not supposed to do that, but it wasn't really her fault. Although now we're about $13 in the hole because we can't resell that now.

Case the second - Patient comes to pick up some scrips, but she's not sure how many. I tell her she has two, both of them Dr. Call-Ins, one of them is ciprofloxacin and I honestly forget what the other is. She asks if she can get something different besides the cipro and we tell her she'll have to have her Dr. call in something different because we can't change it ourselves. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, it was only $6 and is a fairly common medication. She goes on to ask the pharmacist if Cipro can cause tendon pain and problems and he confirms her suspicion. She doesn't want it because she already HAS tendonitis and other tendon issues, and mentioned this several times while she was at the office today. Kudos to the patient for actually researching stuff and knowing what drugs she shouldn't take.

Case the third - this was actually my first customer of the day and had me sorely tempted to turn around and leave 15 minutes into my shift. She told her Dr. several times that she takes her Metformin three times a day when she went in to ask for a new Rx. Dr. wrote it for twice a day, meaning we had to re-do the scrip using an old, but still good Rx from her profile that we had on file. After much screaming and ranting, of course. Your incompetence caused us to get yelled at. Again. Customer did mention Doc seemed 'frazzled and having a bad day', but seriously, things like this could potentially kill someone.

[Lady Legira]

MOAR dumb doctors today.

Case the second - Patient comes to pick up some scrips, but she's not sure how many. I tell her she has two, both of them Dr. Call-Ins, one of them is ciprofloxacin and I honestly forget what the other is. She asks if she can get something different besides the cipro and we tell her she'll have to have her Dr. call in something different because we can't change it ourselves. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, it was only $6 and is a fairly common medication. She goes on to ask the pharmacist if Cipro can cause tendon pain and problems and he confirms her suspicion. She doesn't want it because she already HAS tendonitis and other tendon issues, and mentioned this several times while she was at the office today. Kudos to the patient for actually researching stuff and knowing what drugs she shouldn't take.

Good on the patient. I took ciprofloxacin in my late teens for nearly two years for kidney and bladder infections (they took out the kidney where the infections were seated when I was 19). New years eve I fell for no real reason when my knee gave way under me when I was 18. The doctor asked if I'd been playing football because it looked like a classic footballers injury. I was still on ciprofloxacin for at least another three months. I can't say for sure that these events are linked but no doctor will answer me on it. I can only imagine what else I took in the same family or other antibotics since I was on them pretty much from when I was 3 up until 18-19.

Today I have issues with that knee and carterlige damage. Long term use of ciprofloxacin seems to be encouraged less due to the side effects. I tend to look into any drug precribed to me now.

[Kristev]

My mother would challenge medications the doctors would prescribe her once in a while, based on side effects, dosage, or drug inter-actions. But she was a nurse for twenty years, so she knew what she was talking about.