PharmCountry

Yesterday, a concerned father came into the pharmacy with a pill his wife found in their 13 year old son’s bedroom. We took a look at the pill, knowing full well that it was most likely a narcotic, but we gave the kid the benefit of the doubt.

It was a round, white pill, with the number 30 on one side, and some other numbers on the other side. When we looked it up, it turned out to be Morphine Sulfate ER 30mg.

The pharmacist told this to the father, who just about lost it. “What!” he said in disbelief. He asked for a printout about it, and of course all we could do was print the patient info sheet that goes in every prescription bag. (He wanted something with a picture, but none of our sources had one.)

Personally, I feel no sympathy for the kid, only for the parent. If you’re smart enough to hide it from your parents and stupid enough to get caught, you deserve whatever your parents dish out. (If this had happened when I was 13, my parents would have smacked me so hard, I’d still be feeling it.)

Besides, there are enough illegal drugs out there with fewer side effects.

Yesterday, I had a patient come in with a prescription for Percocet 5/325 #120. The script looked good, so I went to the logbook to see if we had it. We hade plenty of Endocet (our normal brand), but before I told him that, I looked at his profile.

All he had ever gotten was Roxicet (which of course, we don’t have enough of.) He also had a note in his profile: “Watch out. Mean patient.”

So, I informed him that we didn’t have it. He didn’t seem surprised. “You never do,” he said. So why the F do you always come here?! He asked if I could call another pharmacy in our chain. Remembering the note in his profile, I said yes, when normally I would say no.

I got connected straight to the pharmacist. She asked who it was for, knowing I usually don’t call. I told her, and she knew the patient. “Even though we have it, tell him we don’t.” Whew, ok, I’ll send him packing.

“Can you call another pharmacy?”

By this point, I figured the guy shouldn’t be getting it, so when I called the next pharmacy, I turned my head and whispered, “Tell me you don’t have it.” The technician giggles, and says, “Oh, yeah, we don’t have it.” I thanked her and said goodbye.

He then asked me to call another pharmacy. “They usually have it,” he says. I just gritted my teeth and clenched my hands, and said, “Sure.”

As I waited for the third pharmacy to pick up, I looked at the script more closely, and the stupid doctor had written 1/26/04! (Like I said earlier, it looked ok, and it was in good condition, so it obviously wasn’t two years old.)

I wasn’t quite ready to confront the patient with this information, so I went ahead and asked if the other pharmacy had it, repeating my whisper. Well, this time I was put on hold, so I just faked it. While still on hold, I said, “Oh, you don’t have it either? Oh, well. Thanks anyway. Bye.”

So, I pretended at that point to just happen to notice the date. The patient was mad, but thankfully his anger was directed at the doctor, not me. Oh yeah, did I mention the doctor’s office was closed for the weekend?

I love (read: sometimes hate) working in a pharmacy.