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That's a bit like saying a doctor who won't perform abortions, or a plastic surgeon who refuses crazy body modifications need to find another line of work.
Not at all. Pharmacists cannot diagnose or prescribe. A DOCTOR examined this woman and decided what was medically appropriate for her. The pharmacist just carries out that prescription. Pharmacists are there to fill orders not determine whether those prescriptions are ethical or medically necessary.
Not at all. Pharmacists cannot diagnose or prescribe. A DOCTOR examined this woman and decided what was medically appropriate for her. The pharmacist just carries out that prescription. Pharmacists are there to fill orders not determine whether those prescriptions are ethical or medically necessary.
That may be your viewpoint, but the law provides otherwise.
They aren't judging the ethics of the patient so much as they can't be forced to violate their own ethics.
The company policy was to refer the customer to another pharmacist or a manager. Most of the employees in a pharmacy are not pharmacists. There may not have been another one on duty.
I get that everybody's addicted to the instant outrage machine but it might pay to think this one through.
1) I disagree with those laws as they can be damaging to people who do not have easy access to an alternative pharmacy.
2) There were other staff on hand. He violated the company's policy for such situations.
Again, it's highly unlikely those two employees were able to legally dispense her meds. Just because that's what she thought doesn't make it so.
It's an assumption they couldn't dispense, no one here has any idea. I go to a pharmacy that is busy enough to have more than one pharmacist on duty during peak hours.
Plus the pharmacist didn't tell her that the Rx could be transferred to a different location, which is what he should have done if it's correct no one else at that location could dispense it. She got an email telling her it was at the other location, not the pharmacist who didn't follow company policy.
It's an assumption they couldn't dispense, no one here has any idea. I go to a pharmacy that is busy enough to have more than one pharmacist on duty during peak hours.
Plus the pharmacist didn't tell her that the Rx could be transferred to a different location, which is what he should have done if it's correct no one else at that location could dispense it. She got an email telling her it was at the other location, not the pharmacist who didn't follow company policy.
Actually I do have a pretty good idea of how a pharmacy works. If there were only three people in that pharmacy it's very, very unlikely that two of them were pharmacist, simply because that's a gross misuse of payroll for one thing.
Secondly as I mentioned earlier it's quite possible he told her she could pick it up later or at another store, but she was probably already off on her mission of outrage by that point and didn't listen to what he was saying. I deal with such scenarios often.
Clinically speaking; any & all pregnancies that end before the age of viability are called: "Abortions". A miscarriage is a "spontaneous abortion", while an intentional termination is called an "elective abortion".
A doctor, from what I know; is not obligated to provide a pharmacy with the indication for a drug. I believe that is coded on the EHR through the doctor's office. The only time a pharmacy would be privy to the indication would be for a PRN (take as needed vs scheduled dose) dose, because some drugs have more than one approved indication, such as; "every 4 hours if needed for nausea" vs "every 4 hours if needed for anxiety".
A Pharmacist should know that drug could be prescribed for either a spontaneous or elective abortion. It's also prescribed for stomach ulcers & postpartum bleeding. He had no business making assumptions.
He did have a right to refuse to be party to an elective abortion; not to refuse to dispense a particular pharmaceutical. A patient is not obligated to give a pharmacist a narrative of their medical history in order to "justify" a drug ... but I've had to do the exact same thing, just within this last year, with that same company & also involving a medication prescribed for uterine bleeding.
I found that there is a general lack of comprehension when it comes to women's health issues & pharmaceuticals. It's been several months & I'm still struggling with the issues their delay caused.
A woman in Arizona needed to fill a prescription for a miscarriage and the pharmacist refuses to fill it because of his religious beliefs. The woman had already seen her doctor and her fetus had no heartbeat.
Arizona, time to wake up and join the 21st century.
well let me say a few things about this: first of all, based on one story and a liberal blog I am not sure I could totally believe it is 100% true. We do not know if the gal was telling the truth. As for the pharmacist, I do believe anyone has a right to do business based on religion. Remember the days when Quakers were not required to serve in the military even though all you men were required to register for the draft and serve if called or when Catholic hospitals could refuse to save the mothers life instead of the babies? I could go on and on.
I do hope assuming, the story is 100% accurate the pharmacist referred her to someone that would fill it.
It is a touchy topic to say the least. I do not know which side is right, if indeed this really happened. I can add, there are other pharmacists. Rather than make a deal out of this, just go to another drug store.
In this instance the problem is a pharmacist who does not understand the fundamental difference between a miscarriage and an elective abortion. That is a very big hole in his fund of knowledge. It makes me wonder what other deficits there are in his education.
No, pharmacists should not refuse to fill narcotic prescriptions, either.
If you cannot fill the prescription for every patient who comes to your store you should choose another profession.
I am not buying the slippery slope argument.
never say never. if i owned a compounding pharmacy in a death penalty state and was asked to compound meds for execution i would refuse.
having said that, this pharmacist failed the patient and knew he was supposed to find her an alternative way to obtain the drug but did not.
1) I disagree with those laws as they can be damaging to people who do not have easy access to an alternative pharmacy.
Really? You "disagree"? I think the people who wanted those laws would say, "Who cares if you disagree?"
Quote:
2) There were other staff on hand. He violated the company's policy for such situations.
Already been explained multiple times.
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