We all have to bond with our patients whether we like it or not. To what degree though... well that's up to the person in question.
Today a woman came into our store seeking a refill on her Omeprazole. This woman complained about her high copay ($1) while I brought up her profile. Her blinged out iPhone and bluetooth headset provided a nice rebuttal which I chose not to offer.
Of course it was several days to soon to fill and when I informed her of this she stated her doc upped her dose. She then decides to call up her doc and get it straightened out herself.
I can live with that.
A few minutes later I hear her hollering if she can talk to the pharmacist. I grab them and then she does something that in all my years I have never seen before.
She takes off her bluetooth headset, hands it to the pharmacist and tells him to talk to her doc.
He looks at it a bit confounded as I'm not sure he knew what it was. She explained what it was and told him to clip it over his ear... which he did.
Now this woman was not the most cleanliness patient in the world. Yet he took her headset, which she later mentioned she wears all day because she thinks it looks cool, which makes the whole situation even more disgusting.
So to all you burgeoning pharmacists out there, remember, there is a limit to which you should bond with your patients. Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not emulate this situation.
Consider it my public service announcement for the month of March. You are all welcome.
6 comments:
Grody to the max. I can't believe your RPh did that.
I won't even take a patient's cell phone if they hand it to me! Have the doctor call the damn pharmacy for God sake!
I won't even take a patient's cell phone if they hand it to me!
Me neither, and I've had it happen on at least a few occasions.
Yep, I have refused a patients phone just because it isn't how we do things. However the guy flipped out because he says I wouldn't take it because he was covered in grease or oil from work. No, I won't take it because it isn't how we talk to patients in our store jerk-bag.
Count me among the folks who never take a patient's phone (not just because of the germs but because we have no way to verify that the person on the other end is actually the MD).
There is NO WAY he should have used that bluetooth headset thing. I cannot stand it when someone hands me their cell phone and most of the time I will decline to use it.
I also recall a customer we had once who told us he could not pay his medical assistance co-pay -- but he did have one of those devices in his ear. Nice.
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