If you think the big retail pharmacy chains and hospital corporations are concerned about your safety, think again. Today’s pharmacists are struggling to keep patients safe while meeting the ever escalating demands of their employers. In her book “Your Pharmacist is a Whore, How pharmacists lost control of their profession and why you should care”, Kim Ankenbruck, a 34 year pharmacy veteran, points out the danger you face every time you get a prescription or medication order filled. While pharmacists are incredibly detail oriented and excellent multitaskers by nature, the current workplace is chaotic and stressful due to the increased demands of upper management, coupled with staff cuts and the promotion of non pharmacist personnel over the pharmacists. At the end of the book, Kim provides contact information and sample letters you can send to both government agencies and the CEO’s of the various chain pharmacies. The letters bring up many of the issues experienced by patients, as well as holding the powers that be accountable for their part in these shortcomings and demanding that they clean up their act. This book is a call to action for pharmacists and patients to stand up and push for positive change in the healthcare system, as well as an informative behind the scenes look at the profession and business of pharmacy.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1726324648/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_awdo_t1_KgeMBbFC6YM90
Filed under: General Problems
Never accept a,prescription(s) from your doctor without asking what it is for. While you are looking at the prescription(s) ask your doctor the name, dosage and how you are to take it. If you do not think you will remember. Write what the doctor says down on a piece of paper. Or put it in your phone.
Never take a prescription without checking the imprint at drugs.com or rxlist.com. Check that information against what the bottle has,written on it. Then check the bottle and what the website said against what you wrote down.
Patients bear a certain level of responsibility. No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc all make mistakes. It has always been this way. It will always be this way. It is just more publicized with the internet now.