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Don’t pharmacists communicate with their patients anymore?
By Tazneem Anwar
18 Sep 2010
After waiting 90 minutes for me and my 2 year old son to be seen by the GP for an emergency appointment (and register as a temporary resident whilst away from home) we visited the pharmacy next door to have my sons prescription dispensed.My son had an acute exacerbation of asthma, most likely viral.
The chemist was an independently owned one. We walked in to find one dispenser playing cards and the other playing with her mobile phone! Ok, I know they were not busy, but playing cards! There must have been something else they could have been doing. Theres always something to do at a pharmacy, clean up, date check, tidy shelves, put stock away, I could go on.
I handed the pharmacist the prescription, he barely acknowledged me. Within 5 minutes it was ready. Now where i work at a hospital pharmacy our standard operating procedure (SOP) states that we should counsel the patients on their medication when handing it out.
This pharmacist just handed it to me and that was that. Judging by his registration number on his Responsible Pharmacist certificate he had been qualified for the same length of time as me, so not a newbie although that's no excuse. Why didn't he ask me if i knew how to use the inhaler and spacer for my son? Why didn't he tell me about the possible side effects of the steroid tablets? I know why, he had a game of cards to get back to!
To top it all off, he didn't even put a patient information leaflet in with the steroid tablets! Very bad indeed.
It is a requirement of the Medicines for Human Use Regulations 1994, as amended (in accordance with the related European Directive) that a Patient information leaflet (PIL) is provided on each occasion medicinal product is supplied. Pharmacists must therefore ensure that a PIL is supplied with every dispensed medicinal product.
If pharmacists can't even be bothered to tell their customers/patients about their medication, then who will? A GP doesn't always have time, they assume the pharmacist will do it.
Maybe im naively thinking this was a one off, not all community pharmacies are like this, surely?
In case some of us have forgotten, here are the principles of our Code of Ethics:
1. Make the care of patients your first concern
2. Exercise your professional judgement in the interests of patients and the public
3. Show respect for others
4. Encourage patients to participate in decisions about their care
5. Develop your professional knowledge and competence
6. Be honest and trustworthy
7. Take responsibility for your working practices
I think some pharmacists need to re-evaluate how they work.
Silver Lining
Hi
I think too many community pharmacies work in this way and it's now a practical standard. In some community pharmacies were I have worked, the pharmacist is simply too busy to give counselling to every patient and they get into the habbit of just giving medicines out. On this occasion however, it seemed like the pharmacist had no excuse.
For my dissertation, I looked into empathy in first year pharmacy students and hope to continue the study to observe how their empathy levels change as they go through training. In medical students, their empathy levels drop as they become more qualified. If this is mirrored by pharmacists, it could explain why your pharmacist had no inclination to explain your medicines.
I suppose you should count yourself lucky for knowing what you should of been told, though it is a small silver lining.
This is shocking!
Well there are 2 sides to every story, but in this case simply unacceptable! Maybe you should complain to the society?
In most cases community pharmacies are understaffed compared to hospital pharmacies so struggle to cope and the work load has increased eg offering more services as well as increase in dispensing items for the same amount of hours worked before all these came in. So this is not fair too, defending pharmacists. But as is the case in capitalism squeeze every bit out and expect growth regardless. What if the sea dries up? I bet capitalists didn't think of that?
And finally at times the patient doesn't want to listen at all, is in a hurry all the time. So what do you do then?
Tarred by the same brush
This is one example, unfortunately an unacceptable one but there are many exceptional community based pharmacists and pharmacies which do communicate with their patients regardless of the day of the week or how much workload they are operating under.
To label a whole segment of a profession on one persons performance is a presumption with little evidence.
However, it is always good to be reminded of the professional standards we hold to and hopefully this will stimulate pharmacists regardless of their choice of working enviroment to refresh their behaviours and hopefully your next excursion to community pharmacy will be a more positive experience.