Dumb Medicine

So I’ve had a weird couple of days.  It turns out I’ve committed assault on an oncology pharmacist, and caused an entire hospital to be evacuated.

I’m back at work now.  We recently got something called IVR.  It stands for Interactive Voice Response which basically means our call volume has decreased tremendously.  Instead of calling us to leave their prescription numbers, they just type them into the computer and they show up on our computer to fill.  Every once in a while there’s a frustrated customer that figures out how to get through the menu and rings the pharmacy.

For these customers, they end up leaving me their number anyways.  It took me 5 minutes to find this annoying when there’s another option for them to leave their prescriptions.  Oh well.

I’m a little worried about what this could lead to down the line.  Public perception is turning towards the idea that a pharmacist’s job can be completed by a machine.  In fact, there was this one guy who asked me how hard my job was.  The interaction goes a little like this:

“If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly do you do back there?”

“Well sir, we decipher your prescription, fill it, submit it to your insurance, check it versus your profile and other questions we ask you, and assess whether it is appropriate.”

“I thought that’s what the doctor did.”

“Doctors try to do that, but you would be suprised how many mistakes we catch a day from them.”

“Cut the crap.  I’m here for the Ambien.”  The customer then attempted to climb into the pharmacy.  I quickly pulled the gate release and it closed down on his head locking his neck in the contraption.  He hadn’t planned for that and fortunately he had not brought back up.

“Now I have you,” I exclaimed.  “What do you people want?”

“You have foiled our attempts on three separate incidences.  Why won’t you just die?”

The obvious answer was self preservation, but I decided to take a different route.  “I refuse to die because I’m the last pharmacist of my profession that will stand up to you people.”  I punched the customer in the face. “What are you here for?”

“I’m here to steal your dignity,” as he wrestled free and ran.

“What the hell?”

So today I had my first ever real clinical experience in pharmacy.  I did that stuff on rotations in pharmacy school, but I was a badass rebel without a cause.  I was going into community just for the money, and I wasn’t into all that clinical shit.  Serves me right.  My buddy from pharm school is in a real bind, and needs a pharmacist to fill in for him.  Since I just refinanced my house, I needed the extra cash so I decided I’d give it a whirl.

So I have to be there at the ass crack of dawn, 6 am.  That was a new experience.  I had to break out my coffee maker which I haven’t used in years.  I make it there in one piece.  My buddy works at a medium sized hospital associated with a medical school.  What does this mean?  Medication errors from interns up the wazoo, and all of this dosing stuff I didn’t have to deal with in retail.

The first thing we do in the morning is go on rounds.  I’d done these as an intern, but I believe I was still asleep in those days, and they didn’t bother asking me questions.  Now they’re all looking at me for answers to Gent dosing and drug interactions.

Our first patient was an elderly black woman in the hospital because a pulmonary embolism.  At least this was something I was somewhat familiar with.  My dad also had one recently, and he had me review his meds.  The interns asked me for a dosing, I think to test the untried waters.  I was able to spout it off no problem.  That was an invigorating feeling and I see why the clinical pharmacists love this stuff.

Our second patient had a MRSA infection on his foot complicated with Gram negative rods.  You could actually smell the rotting flesh, but I won’t go there.  Again I came in with the right dosage, he needed Vancomycin 500mg every 6 hours, and Gentamicin but I had to look up the dosing for this.  The interns were getting comfortable with me, and I was getting comfortable at this.  This clinical stuff was easy.

Our third patient had metastatic Lung cancer.  I did not feel comfortable dosing this patient, but was lucky enough to have the oncology pharmacist stroll in at the right moment.  The interns presented the patient as the nurse started an IV drip of Bleomycin.  The pharmacist and I start talking about the chemotherapy, and what you would look out for.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw an arm swinging at me with hands clutched around an IV line.  The patient had ripped out his Bleomycin drip and was going to give me a shot right to the heart.  Pity it had come to this, I whirlwinded the IV stand.  This caused the line to jerk the patient’s hand back throwing him off balance; he tumbled to the floor.

The oncology pharmacist grabbed me from behind locking his arms around my chest.  I ran backwards as quickly as I could and jabbed my elbows back as he hit the wall.  I had to move and I had to move fast.  I slipped out of the room and hauled ass to the stairwell at the end of the hall.  A blond nurse in a bright pink set of scrubs saw me running out and suddenly pushed a hospital bed in my way.  I jumped over it, rolled, and kept running.  She pulled out her cell phone.

I hopped down the steps four at a time hitting the fire alarm as I passed it.  It was pure genius.  I busted out of the building at a sprint and made my way towards the parking lot.  As I neared it I saw black smoke rising from a silver Audi R8.  I doubted anyone else owned one in the parking lot so I kept running.

I was coming up on a male nurse getting off of a Suzuki Hayabusa 2008 sports motorcycle and shouted at him.  He turned and looked at me as my foot collided with his chest.  He was out cold.  I grabbed his helmet and took off on the bike.  For the love of god, what have I unravelled.

Somehow, I don’t know how, the local NBC station heard about the incident at my pharmacy.  Some buxom female reporter was coming to visit the pharmacy tomorrow to do a story.  I figured it would at least make the day interesting so I obliged.

Today I got to work and it was business as usual.  The reporter came around 3:30 PM with a cameraman.  He didn’t talk much, but she was very bubbly.  I let them in the pharmacy to shoot footage of where the fight took place, we were slow so I watched.  The reporter was satisfied with what she saw, and had the cameraman continue filming “nothing shots,” while she started going over questions with me so I would know what to expect.  Here is how our exchange proceeded:

“I can’t believe how brave you were smacking the gun out of that woman’s hands.  You must know a thing or two about fighting?” she bantered.

I took the time to strike a dashing pose, after all she was rather cute.  “I have only been in one fight before, m’aim, and that was yesterday.  Though, I would like to think that I know a thing or two.”

The reporter asked “Have you ever been in a situation like this before?”

“Of course not,” I replied.

The cameraman continued to shoot footage of where the scene took place, where I had kicked the gun, and the counter where the woman had jumped over.  A customer came up at this point wanting some Sudafed so I started dealing with that while adding, “Most days I just fill prescriptions, and answer questions.  It takes a second to snap into the self-defense mindset…”

I threw my spatula through the air at the camera man.  Given his large size, I had to disable him first or I would quickly be overcome.  Unfortunately the aerodynamics of a spatula are not ideal.  It only hit him in the hamstring preventing him from fleeing quickly.

The reporter hopped the counter, and ran.  Apparently she was more important than the thug she left.  I twisted the spatula, then asked “What the hell are you doing here?”

He scissor kicked me, and stumbled out of the pharmacy.  I got up, brushed myself off, and completed a transfer I had to get from Walgreens.  The knowledge that it wasn’t over was my blessing in disguise.