Again your example is not a good one. You basically just said "A pharmacist deserves $60+ because he can kill a patient because of negligence." If a pharmacist dispenses Keflex instead of Keppra then that's their own fault, not the employer's. Any competent pharmacist would have questioned the indication, quantity, duration, pt med history etc. That pharmacist has no one to blame but themselves.
There is no need for insults and name calling. You can insult me all you want (which is ironic since you are the snitch who reports people) but you still haven't provided a good example where a patient can get killed in retail or why a pharmacist should be paid more due to liability. Teachers have high liability but way lower pay than pharmacists.
Let’s go one by one. This is what you wrote:
“ Can you give an example where you could have killed someone in retail? I worked at a 4300 script per week CVS for 4 years and can't think of any. I don't recall any serious error from any of the pharmacists during my time there.”
You specifically asked about the rph error that could harm the patient. When I gave you the example, you realized you screwed up and started goal-shift: Oh that’s negligence and that doesn’t count! If you want to play this game, sure I will bite:
How about prescriber writing Cabergoline 0.5 mg 1 qd? A potent medication used in treatment for hyperprolactinemia. I was an intern and we received such prescription once. As soon as pharmacist at that time saw the prescription, he immediately said doctor office has screwed up and called and got the rx fixed. He didn’t wait for the computer to flag it. If it was some other rph who would override everything just because doctor wrote it, patient harm will be inevitable.
How about prescriber writing metformin 1000 bid and then sending Janumnet 50-1000 bid two days after? I called the nurse once for such order and she told me it’s fine to dispense both. I told her that’s not appropriate. She said that’s how doctor wanted it. I told her it’s still not appropriate and we got into bit of argument. I hung up and after 5 minutes I receive a call to cancel previous metformin rx. Once I receive Levofloxacin 500 mg bid. I called to verify and nurse says that’s okay and that they do it all the time. I still told it’s not okay and I am pretty sure doc has screwed up. She verifies with doctor and says she is grateful for correcting them. We regularly run into scenario where pt uses multiple doctors and they receive scripts like Junuvia and Tradjenta or Glimepride and Glipizide or Livalo and Crestor at the same time where we have to intervene.
A competent rph knows when to intervene, when to document and move forward and when not to budge despite nurse says “it’s okay”.
Also, our usefulness lies into easy access to public. I have seat down patients and went over how to do glucose testing. I show them videos on my phone and then tell them to test in front of me to confirm they knew how to do it correctly. Their doctor office didn’t show them and they didn’t want to make a separate appointment to see the doctor. They also weren’t tech savvy so I helped them out.
If you are an educated person who stays on top of things concerning your health, you probably won’t need a pharmacist. But fact of the matter is, many people don’t fall into this category, especially elderly and often times they do benefit from our work. Most errors don’t kill people overnight but there is a potential of long-term side effects. For example taking 4000 mg of metformin has no added benefit to glucose control; only possible side-effects.
And I would love for you to show me post where I have said pharmacists are entitled to $60 hour salary.
I already know what your response is going to be: oh these errors are nothing special and don’t qualify. So I will stop here. You are enjoying this argument more than me it seems.
