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Thursday, March 1, 2007

Give me liberty or give me Omnicef

So I fill a prescription for some Omnicef antibiotic suspension today and realize after checking the child's weight that the dose is double what it should be. My first thought isn't 'hey i'm glad i caught this' or 'hey i wonder if they'll write a story about me in the paper', instead it's 'son of a bitch now i have to call and question the great and powerful doctor who prescribed this train wreck'. Awesome. Here's a little secret: 70 to 80 percent of doctors do not take kindly to having their work questioned by the lowly pharmacist. Here's another little secret: 100 percent of humans are capable of making mistakes. So I call the doctor's office and after giving them the secret password and having my vocal pattern analyzed by a NASA computer, I am actually allowed to speak with the great man who wrote the prescription. When he gets on the phone, he impatiently says "Yes? This is the doctor", clearly implying that I am keeping him from his daily conference call with the UN secretary general. I say "Yeah, on this prescription it appears the dose is too high given the patient's weight...(akward silence where he says nothing)....Uhhh, so I have 24 pounds and you're dosing this every 12 hours so I'm assuming 7 mg per kg per dose"....(more akward silence)....Finally I get "Yeah, that's what I used, 24 pounds" (this is pretty much the end of the conversation as far as he's concerned). So I proceed to offer up my wild theory that the dosing is twice as high as it should be. This is the part where he gets annoyed and does the calculation, which is then followed by "Oh....hmm yeah that is a little high (note: "a little high" apparently is doctor speak for "Double what the infant should be taking")..."Go ahead and change that accordingly" (followed by the only part of the conversation with no akward silence since he just hangs up the phone). I don't get an 'I appreciate you catching that' or a 'wow thanks for saving me from a potential lawsuit' or even a simple 'thanks'. Unbelievable. I wanted to call him back but i knew i couldn't since I had to go apologize to the mom for wasting an extra 10 minutes of her life while I was trying to look out for her son's well being. As she impatiently grabbed the prescription bag from my hand and walked off, I remembered she didn't have to say thank you because she's on medicaid.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The same thing happened to me!! Must be the same person writing the rx...The parents flipped when I told them about the dosing and kept calling me. CALL/HARASS YOUR FUCKING DOCTOR!! I DIDN'T SCREW UP! I SAVED YOUR BRAT FROM DIARRHEA!

Anonymous said...

I had a PA that works several offices around the couty write for over double the dose of Omnicef that the toddler should be taking. I told the toddler's dad that was standing there staring at me while I was working on the Rx that I was going to have to call the PA to get the dose changed. He was annoyed but said ok. I called up the office and they said that he is working this afternoon over at the other clinic. So I called over there and he was in a room but the nurse/cna/desk attendent/cleaning lady said that they will have him call me when he gets out. A few minutes later the dad came back and I told him the events that taken place and he said abruptly to give him the prescription back and he'll go across the road to have it filled because "they know what they're doing". "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!?!?!? FINE BE UP ALL NIGHT WITH THE KID'S DIARRHEA!!!," I thought to myself. At least in this case the PA was thankful for me catching the mistake.