"Are pharmacists God?

OK, so now we have, on the one side, people like Dave Luckett, who apparently gets no respect in his job and wants everyone to realize that, OK, he's not claiming to BE God, but he's the next best thing, what with saving everybody's lives 'n all.

Then on the other hand, we've got pharmacists who think they ARE God, refusing to dispense reasonable doctor-prescribed medications to people who need them and have a right to have them.

Who woulda thunk that pharmacists were such hot shit??? Not me, no. Thanks for showing us all the light, Dave."

Hate to tell ya, pally, but we are a very respected profession. Near the top, in fact.

As for saving lives... I fail to see how that is a bad thing. I am no god at all (except in the sack... I thank you), just a person who chose a profession that takes the well being of others into account. I must be a giant ass-hat.

As for the other pharmacists you mentioned, I already stated I agreed they shouldn't be practicing if they cannot fulfill their obligations to the patient. So your snarky attitude to me makes you look fairly stupid.

As for hot shit... eh. Well compensated, perhaps. But I think hot shit is more a personal trait, and not one given to you by your profession (fighter pilots and astronauts excepted)

D

OK, so now we have, on the one side, people like Dave Luckett, who apparently gets no respect in his job and wants everyone to realize that, OK, he's not claiming to BE God, but he's the next best thing, what with saving everybody's lives 'n all.

Then on the other hand, we've got pharmacists who think they ARE God, refusing to dispense reasonable doctor-prescribed medications to people who need them and have a right to have them.

Who woulda thunk that pharmacists were such hot shit??? Not me, no. Thanks for showing us all the light, Dave.

In the future, pharmamcists may start writing prescriptions, after a doctor has made a diagnosis, because we know MORE about medications than do doctors, not less. Having a doctor tell a pharmacist about drugs is like having a pharmacists tell a surgeon how to remove a gall bladder.

I think if you only knew how hard it was to insure the health and safety of our customers day in and day out, you might change your tune. Doctors make mistakes... they give doses that can kill, they give doses that weouldn't be effective. They mistake one drug name for another. They give drug combos that can kill.

It isn't their fault. They are taught different lessons, imporant things, but a thourough knowledge of drugs isn't one if them. Not like the education the pharmacists get. That is why we consider ourselves, collectively, as part of your health care team. Nurses aren't doctors. Doctors aren't pharmacists. But we ALL work together for the heath and well being of our patients.

If you only knew what really went on. You probably would change your mind. Then again, knowing what I know about people and their tendancies to hold onto their beliefs, not matter how wrong, leads me to guess that it would do nothing.

More's the pity.

Dave Luckett

"The pharmacist has no right to circumvent the doctor's perscription. If a pharmacist doen's like having to dispense what the doctor perscribed, he doesn't like the very nature of his job and should find a new career. It's like being a poet who hates poetry. Illogical. Pharmists dispense and doctors prescribe. Pharmicists DO NOT have the right, knowledge, or training to know what perscription is best for that patient, HIs only role is literally, obeying the orders of a doctor. If you arne't the type of person willing to obey doctors' orders, you should not go into pharmacy school."

A pharmacist has EVERY right to circumvent a doctor's prescription, if it is a badly written prescription. Are you seriously suggesting that if a doctor wrote a prescription that could KILL a patient, a pharmacist would have no recource but to fill it and wish the patient well in the afterlife? What a complete load of horse shit. While pharmacists do not DIAGNOSE medical conditions, the pharmacist knows much more about medications that doctors ever do. Again, that is why we are all required these days to become doctors of pharmacy.

We ABSOLUTELY know what is best as far as drug regimine, we ABSOLUTELY have the knowledge and training in this field, and it is our right and DUTY to do what is right for the patient, regardless of the doctor's orders. Period. If you don't like it, stop being wrong.

In this day and age of people going to several different doctors, who prescribe different drugs, each not knowing what the other had prescribed, it is the pharmacist who can make sure there are no drug interaction, some of which can KILL you. So do not sit here and lecture from your position of ignorance about my profession.

I will wholeheartedly agree that pharmacists who practice their religion though pharmacy practice are doing a great disservice to their profession, and I think they should not be practicing... but don't you DARE to assume that we know nothing and are only here to count a pill or two. If that were so, doctors wouldn't call US for drug recommendations for certain patient conditions, as they do every day.

Take your head out of your gluteal canal and learn something before you go and insult a class of people who exist to save lives, even ones such as yours.

Dave Luckett

...already have the right to refuse to perform specific treatments for conscience reasons. There are doctors who refuse to dispense birth control pills, and if you go to such a doctor and you want BC and he or she won't give you a script, then you can change doctors. Your relationship with a doctor is, usually, specific to your doctor.

Emergency room doctors are obligated to perform whatever medical services are required, because you don't get to pick your emergency room doctor. Now I don't know how that plays out if the emergency is that you're vomiting to death because of a bad reaction to your pregnancy and the only way to save your life is an emergency abortion (yes, this does happen), but in general, emergency room doctors can't refuse to treat you because they don't approve of the medical procedure required to save your life. If you have an ethical problem with some commonly medically accepted procedure performed on dying people, you don't become an emergency room doctor.

People can pick their pharmacy, but they can't pick their *pharmacist.* The pharmacy does that. And you usually pick your pharmacy on the basis of their hours, how convenient they are, how close they are, do they have a drive-thru, etc. You don't, generally, pick your pharmacy on the basis of their treatment philosophy because pharmacies aren't supposed to *have* treatment philosophies. They are supposed to dispense the medications the doctor called for. Period.

Now, perhaps we are moving toward a future where pharmacies will in fact have treatment philosophies, in which case they need to be up front about what those are, and in which case they need to have the absolute right to fire anyone who won't conform to those policies. If you are a pharmacist, and you don't want to dispense birth control, but the pharmacy you work for has a policy of dispensing any medication a doctor has prescribed with no questions asked, your ass should be so fired. You don't have the right to object to doing your job any more than a religious Muslim grocery clerk has the right to refuse to sell pork. You do have the right to *quit* your job and find another that is more compatible with your beliefs.

In a future where pharmacies have treatment philosophies, people will choose pharmacies on the basis of those philosophies. And I think I don't need to tell anyone here that pharmacies that promise to stay the hell out of your personal business and will dispense whatever your doctor prescribed will do better in the marketplace than pharmacies that promise to dispense only medications they personally agree with. A niche market may spring up of "Christian" pharmacies the way there are Christian bookstores, where they won't dispense birth control, and all the good Christian girls will go there for their antihistamines and their antibiotics but will go to CVS for their birth control. As long as there is a free market and people know the pharmacy's policy up front, and there are alternatives to go to, it would be okay. The problem is that right now, that isn't true. You don't know who the pharmacists on duty today at Target are or what their religious beliefs are; all you know is that once you go to Target, *maybe* you will get your BC and *maybe* you will be told to go to the Target across town. Target doesn't have a policy of filling or not filling prescriptions, Target has a policy of letting the pharmacist decide what he or she wants to do, and *that* is unacceptable because the customer doesn't have the relationship with the pharmacist, but the pharmacy, and does not therefore have free informed choice when choosing a pharmacy.

So yes, doctors, specifically, can and should have the right to refuse to perform treatments they do not agree with ethically, so long as those treatments are not required to save the patient's life on an emergency basis and so long as they are up front with their patients about what treatments they won't perform. This isn't really any different from doctors who won't perform a treatment because it's not in their specialty -- no one expects their eye doctor to fix their nose, and if your gynecologist isn't also an obstretician and you get pregnant, you're going to change to an ob/gyn and that's expected. Pharmacists, however, work for pharmacies; they don't have independent relationships with consumers, and therefore they should not have the right to refuse to fill any prescriptions unless the pharmacy is up front with the customer and advertises that their pharmacists have this right (and I don't mean in the fine print, I mean *advertises.*) When I worked for a company that cleaned mailing lists for telemarketers, I didn't have the right to refuse to find more phone numbers on the grounds that I didn't approve of telemarketing; waiters don't have the right to refuse to serve dishes that aren't kosher or halal because of their own religious beliefs; if you get a job at a department store selling coats, you're not going to get very far arguing that you shouldn't have to sell leather or fur because meat is murder; and pharmacists should not have the right to refuse to do their jobs. Period.