Saturday, March 31, 2007

Are You Saying the Doctor is Stupid?!

Incident happened a few days back. This man came to the pharmacy to collect medicine on his mother's behalf. As usual, people are blind, so he did not see the instructions to press the green button for a queue number, so my tech verbally instructed him to get a queue number.

After that, he started showing this piece of paper with some instructions from the doctor saying he needed the dressing item from the prescription. Politely informed him that the medicine was not written in the prescription so pharmacy cannot supply the item, and he should go back to the doctor to get it written in the prescription or at least check with the doctor if the instructions were meant for him or meant for the wound care nurse. Reason being, sometimes the wound care nurses have their own stocks of dressings and medicines used for wound care so there is no need for patients to procure from pharmacy.

However, I really cannot expect somebody who is too stupid to read instructions to comprehend what I am saying. He raised his voice at us and said he did not care if the medicine is not written in the prescription. The instructions were written on our hospital's form so pharmacy had to supply the med. Told him off that the prescription is the only legal document that pharmacy recognises for any sale of medicine.

That probably riled him because he started shouting at us, asking why then the doctor gave him the hospital form and asking if we were saying the doctor is stupid for not writing the medicine into the prescription. Now that is really "funny", none of us said the word "stupid". He did. Not us. Effectively, he was the one who said the doctor is stupid. So much for trying to be a smart ass. S.T.U.P.I.D.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Check Your Prescription

Those practising in hospitals would probably come across this problem. When you ask the patient if he is Tan XX, he affirms he is. When you ask for the IC number, you realise it is not the correct number. Ask the patient AGAIN if he is Tan XX, and he realises that he is not Tan XX but Tan YX. Starts getting huffy and will probably raise his voice asking how come the doctor gave him the wrong prescription. *roll my eyes*

Patients, please practise a bit of commonsense. When you receive the prescription, did you even check to make sure the prescription is yours? True, the doctor/ nurse assisting the doctor is at fault to give out the wrong prescription, but you are equally at fault for not doing a quick check. It is the same commonsense you use when you check your bank book after you deposit money with the bank. It is just to make sure the bank returned the correct book and the correct amount of money was credited into the book.

Doing this quick check before you even leave the clinic to proceed to the pharmacy would certainly save us all a lot of time and agony. Time is saved on us having to contact the doctor and waiting for the doctor's reply. Time is also saved on having to wait for the nurse to send the prescription over to the pharmacy. Be thankful if the pharmacist bothered contacting the doctor and arrange for the nurse to send the prescription over, and stop complaining that you had to wait for long. If you are not happy, go back to the clinic yourself to pick up the prescription.

Oh, and did I mention you have to be thankful to the pharmacist? I was referring to my colleagues, because yours truly would just send you straight back to the clinic to retrieve the correct prescription.