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| Trust Your Instincts: Rants and Musings of a Retail Pharmacist |
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by The Redheaded Pharmacist - February 7, 2012
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Provided by The Redheaded Pharmacist
I’ve learned a few things in my decade plus as a pharmacist. And if I had to give advice to current pharmacy students I could mention a lot of things I think are important for them to know. But one piece of advice I would definitely tell them is to trust your instincts.
Sometimes, a prescription just doesn’t look right. Whether it’s bad handwriting, a misplaced word or quantity, or even how neat something is printed or signed. Whatever the case, if you think something is wrong in this business, more often than not you’re right.
I can remember cases throughout my career where I looked at a prescription, assumed that the doctor meant one thing, called to verify just to cover my bases, and found out my assumptions were completely wrong. Trying to decipher what a physician meant is a difficult task at times. And if you are wrong, patients could pay the price.
Errors can happen in a pharmacy for all sorts of reasons. If you are rushed or tired you can definitely miss something important. Some drug names are spelled similar, doctors can write directions in an unusual way, or you can simply mis-read a word or phrase completely. When in doubt though, just reach for the phone and give them a call.
Early in my career I almost felt bad for calling a prescriber to “bother them” regarding a clarification of one of their prescriptions. I quickly got over that mindset when I realized that if a prescription walks out of the pharmacy while I’m on duty, it’s my responsibility. That reality helped drive home the idea of being safe rather than sorry.
I’ve also caught forgeries by simply following my gut. I can think of a couple of examples of prescriptions that didn’t really look blatantly out of place or wrong but somehow I had a bad feeling about them. A quick phone call to the prescriber or emergency department ended up confirming those suspicions.
And inevitably if you find an error like that or catch a criminal trying to pass a forgery or altered prescription that “looks good” to other pharmacy personnel, they will ask how you knew there was a problem with the prescription. I’ve answered that question with a simple “I had a feeling” on more than one occasion. Sometimes, you just know.
And as you gain experience and learn the job, you’ll find that trusting your instincts if you sense there is a problem is the best route to take. Maybe that doctor didn’t mean to switch that blood pressure medication for this patient you’ve known for years? Maybe that controlled prescription with the unusual quantity from an out of town patient is worth verifying? I catch myself asking those kinds of questions in my head all the time.
The worst thing that I can think of at work would be to mis-fill a prescription that I had questioned ahead of time. Instead of calling to clarify, simply filling a prescription is one option. But I would worry that my instincts were right and that I didn’t catch some issue or potential danger.
Even little things like asking a patient for their allergy information when you don’t have a documented prescription allergy in their profile can potentially prevent a drug misadventure. I’ve asked patients if they had an allergy and they proceeded to tell me the very medication they were just prescribed by their doctor.
Having good instincts as a pharmacist isn’t really a special skill. Sure some people tend to be better at it than others but often it’s just a combination of trusting yourself and relying on previous experience. That is why I’m thankful for all of the years I’ve been a pharmacist. Those years have taught me a lot about what it means to be a good pharmacist.
So trust me, don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and make a call if something doesn’t look right with a prescription you’ve just been handed at work. Taking a few moments to clarify a prescription or ask a question can prevent lots of bad outcomes from ever happening. It’s well worth your time to make sure everything looks right on a given prescription.
The next time a pharmacy student asks me for advice, I will tell them that trusting their instincts is very important. It’s one of those lessons I had to learn through years of experience. Keep that in mind the next time a coworker hands you a prescription and says something like “does this look right to you?” More often than not, the answer to that question is no.
The Redheaded Pharmacist
The Redheaded Pharmacist has been working full time in retail pharmacy for more than a decade. He is in his mid 30s, and, yes, he has red hair.
Disclaimer: This blog represents the opinions of the author and the author alone. It does not represent any pharmacy group or organization. I also will leave out or change the names of patients/customers to protect their privacy and comply with government regulations regarding patient privacy rights and personal information.
The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.
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