Receptionists that you just want to strangle.

RARRRR. I hate freaking E-Rx's sometimes. From some ridiculous quantities, incomplete Rx's, or when they decide send the same script TWICE through E-scribe, once through the fax, and also to the pharmacy down the street. SERIOUSLY?

What I hate even more are refill requests for prescribers on E-scribe. You cannot "refax it" easily if they didn't get it the first time. My favorite is "We don't have e-scribe." .... but your doctor and entire office has an ID number... and you sent us one last week. "Oh.. What's e-scribe?"

Today I just wanted to rip this office a new one.

"We e-faxed a request through e-scribe 4 days ago."
"Oh that's not our patient."
... That's not what you told them 10 minutes ago.
"Oh, THAT patient (wtf??) we never got anything. Can you fax it again?"
"We did, we faxed you manually yesterday to the number you gave us, and this morning. Can you give us a verbal rx because your fax machine does not seem to be working?"
"We need you to fax us."
"Ok I will, but your fax machine does not seem to be working so how will I know if you recieve it?"
"I'll call you."

I refax it again and this goes on periodically for the next 4 hours. The patient calls us screaming at us for 'not faxing the doctor the refill request' because they still haven't recieved anything. Bitch never called back of course. So we kept calling because they kept yelling at us to call because "Obviously we are not doing our job."

By the third call and manual fax to the office I wanted to strangle this receptionist. I asked her, if we had faxed it to the office THREE times today in the last 5 hours and she hasn't recieved ONE What makes her think that it will go through NOW?

"Just fax it again." BITCH YOU DIDN'T ANSWER MY QUESTION!!!!! was screaming in my head. Instead I just asked her to ask the doctor to call in a new RX so the patient can have their medication before they close. "No. We need you to fax us."

AWOIJEOIAWJFOWIJE Jesus fucking christ is your fax machine on???

The last time I called I got someone different. Thank fucking god, because I was ready to break something. We fax it one more time, and they turned on the fax machine finally and I get a call 45 minutes later that they got it and will call us back later.

Fuck that I'm off shift. Good luck with that shit. The patient was a lot nicer in the end. I told her the whole ordeal and that we tried to get them to give us a new rx over the phone because of their fax issue, and she offered to go down to the office herself if they wouldn't take care of it. I hope she bitch slaps that receptionist.

Hello... Goodbye.

I'm not sure if there are many people that work in a pharmacy where every one is like family. I've heard stories of ones where everyone hates each other. How much would that suck? My pharm family is usually what gets me through the day. Although they will get on your nerves just like your real family.

The day I got into pharmacy school was a really happy one. The day I met The Girlfriend was a really drunk, but happy one. The day I chose between a school much loser to home and a school over 2000 miles away, was a hard one. When I signed my life away and committed to a school farther away, it made me sad. In the end though, I made the decision to go somewhere I would be happiest, not what would make this relationship easiest.

A month or so ago we agreed to break up in August when I left. It wasn't an easy decision and over these short 3 months she changed my life. My coworkers were split between begging us to stay together and saying that we should just end it now. (Like I said, they love gettin' in your business, just like family.)

I've never really connected with anyone quite like the way I connected with her, and I guess she felt the same way. We were both reluctant on the decision, but logic always wins in our debates.

I broke up with her last night. I just couldn't drag it out any longer. As happy as I am with her, knowing tht we were going our separate ways in two months just made me so sad. I couldn't imagine how much it would hurt by the time August rolled around.

I think I may regret this later.

Compounding woes

I enjoy compounding medications, for me it's fun and it's kind of like being back in my lab. There are many things that really suck about it though. This is mostly due to the fact that you're compounding in a retail pharmacy and not a specialty one.

Patients trying to scare the crap out of you, well they do that indirectly by saying the suspension that was compounded was shorted to them. Um, if there wasn't enough solution then that could mean the active ingredient was not properly diluted with the 'delivery vehicle'. There was NO way this particular one was 'shorted'. This is usually code for "I am a fucking idiot and gave my kid too much" or "I spilled it, but will blame it on you instead."

I triple check all my suspensions' volumes before and after they are combined. Then that gets checked by the RPh on duty. Shitty part is, thanks to the world of corpo pharmacy, we just have to 'accept it' and give them more.

I also like compounding because most people leave you alone when you are wearing gloves, a face mask (for some powders this is a must), and holding some strange looking objects. Unfortunately, there are always those dipshits that shout "HEY I NEED TO PICK UP MY MEDS!" at you while you're trying to pour the suppository mixture into the mold with your back to them. Then go to the pick up window dumbass. Do you see a cash register back here?

Sometimes when I'm holding a 50ml syringe with an 18G needle mischevious thoughts run through my mind, I giggle to myself a bit then return to my work while my coworkers stare with a frightened look on their face. They know I'd never hurt them, I work with some of the best people, but I guess you never know when that last straw breaks the mules back.

And of course when they want their compounded med "right now." Sure thing, let me pull it out of my ass.

Oh snap, you just got pwned druggie.

Ya know, patients say a lot of strange/weird/stupid things to me, but I think this guy takes the cake.

Patient "I need to know if I can get this refilled now."

I get the info, turns out to be a narcotic, filled for a month supply less than 2 weeks ago.

Me "Sorry sir, this can't be filled until this date because you just got it filled less than 2 weeks ago."

Patient "No! You only gave me 60 tablets and it says here to take it twice a day so that's FOUR TABLETS A DAY. EVERY SIX HOURS." (he left out that the part where it's only as needed"

Me "Sir, twice a day is every 12 hours, 2 tablets a day."

Patient "NO ONE DAY IS 12 HOURS. SO EVERY 6 HOURS."

Me "Sir, one day is 24 hours."

Patient "SAYS WHO?"

Me "... the rest of the world? And also because 24 hours is how long it takes the earth to make a full rotation on its axis. Please just follow the directions on bottle. We cannot release this medication until this date."

Patient "WHATEVER!"

Then my pharmacist looked over at me and said "What?? Did you really just have to tell someone repeatedly that one day is 24 hours?"