Diagnosis: Overly stressed from the post-holiday rush

Prescribe: Stories (short), Read 1 PRN suffering and misery

Refills: Yes

DAW: 1

All in a name

It's the last week in April, and a patient comes in. When I tell them it's too early to fill their prescriptions, they explain that they'll be going away in a few days. It's a slow day, and the patient has nowhere to be, so they call up their insurance to see about getting a vacation override. While they're on hold, we chat.

Me: So, where are you going?

Patient: The Kentucky Derby, it's my first time! Just got finished shopping for all the different outfits I'll need.

Me: That's great! Have you ever been to a race before?

Patient: Nothing out of state, just Belmont.

Other tech (overhearing us): Wait, where is the Kentucky Derby?

Me and the patient look over at Other tech, share a quick glance to confirm that we both heard what we thought we heard, and then back at her.

Patient: Uh... Kentucky?

Other tech: Oh? *long, exaggerated pause as the realization hits her* Oh!

We shared a laugh, and after the patient left, Other tech and I get to talking. Apparently, she was also under the assumption that the Kentucky Derby was a NASCAR race. I told her to ask which car the patient was rooting for, the next time she came in.

Ordering medication using the proper units

Figuring out how to count, write up, and dispense certain medications can be tough, but give it enough time and they become pretty much second nature. Doing unit conversions for insulin especially is my kryptonite, and one day I got to share my misery with a floating pharmacist who empathized - and had the same problems. That same day, two patients needed refills of their Lantus prescriptions... and wouldn't you know, we were out of stock. Both patients had agreed to come back the next day, and our enterprising floater placed the order herself.

The next day, just before noon, our shipment arrives. The deliveryman wheels his hand truck up to the pharmacy door with the usual suspects - 4 regular totes, 2 refrigerated totes, and a control tote. And then he drops a line I'll never forget:

"I'll be right back with the rest."

Not five minutes later, the hand truck comes back up to our pharmacy door with three more refrigerated totes - and not the regular-sized totes that we normally get our daily shipments in, but the full-sized totes our weekly truck shipments come in. The invoice showed that we got 37 boxes of Lantus, and we had only actually needed 4.

Always remember to double-check your order before placing it.

Selective reading

One of the biggest patient happiness issues with my corner pharmacy is the dreaded 'missed phone call'. What do I mean by that? Well, oftentimes a patient will see a missed phone call from our pharmacy's number, and in their minds that means that a prescription has been filled at the pharmacy, and is ready to be picked up. And when they find out that the phone call was for one of a dozen other reasons - like a prescription being put in for refill too soon, or being out of stock, or needing a prior authorization - well... they aren't happy. It's a running joke between our techs that our chain's Caller ID must say "Your prescription is ready" because of how often it happens.

Last week Tuesday, I'm working the pick-up counter, and one of my coworkers comes up to the register. I pull her up in the system, and... she doesn't have any prescriptions to pick up. I'm confused. She's confused. We check the central system, and can't find any record of any prescriptions filled recently or anything. But she had gotten a phone call, and she had assumed her doctor had called in refills of her birth control.

While we're trying to find any record of our phone call to her, my pharmacist comes back from a bathroom break. She sees my coworker and exclaims, "Oh, <Other tech>! I called to see if you could cover a shift at another store, someone called out."

<insert caller ID joke here>

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, OPEN BOX

There is a box in my pharmacy, hiding in a corner that's out of view from the outside world. It's a non-descript brown cardboard box, with the top flaps masking-taped shut and a piece of paper taped over that. In bright red sharpie, all-caps, bubble shaded letters, are the words IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, OPEN BOX.

The first time I saw the box, I asked what was in it. No one would tell me. I asked what constituted an "emergency". They all said basically the same thing. "You'll know when it's time."

Flu season rolls around. Tamiflu is on back-order. The flu shot is on back-order. We have 5 pages of eScripts that need to be put in through data entry, 15 pages in production, 20 in verification, and a steady stream of 3 patient calls and 1-2 doctor calls. It's me, 1 other tech, and a lone pharmacist who finished a phone call with an angry doctor only to be confronted with a patient angry that her kids were going to go without their Tamiflu, and how dare we expect her to drive 10 minutes to an independent pharmacy that had plenty of the drug in stock.

My pharmacist passes the patient off to me, and excuses herself, going to the corner of the pharmacy to hide for a bit and catch her breath. A minute later, she calls over my coworker, and then as my coworker comes back, she calls me over too.

Her lab coat hanging on the back of the chair, my pharmacist is sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, the "In case of emergency" box open at her feet. She holds it up to me, and says "Take something."

The box is filled to the brim with candy, chocolate, and little plastic toys - the type you'd get in a party favor bag at a little kid's birthday party. I couldn't help myself laughing at seeing what had actually been hiding in the box all that time, especially compared to the wild assumptions I had been making about what it could be.

I took a bag of Swedish Fish, and a little plastic top that I tried to keep spinning as much as I could while I dealt with the evening rush at pick-up. It helped.

Who's on pick-up?

At my corner pharmacy, every day you input your employee ID and password to generate a random 3-letter code as your credentials for the day. I'm not sure if that's how it works everywhere, but that's how it works for us.

One day, it's just my pharmacist and me closing together, and my pharmacist - at a computer on the other side of the counter from her usual spot - asks for my credentials to finalize data entry on a prescription.

Pharmacist (RPh): Hey _Depression, what are your credentials? I forgot mine.

Me: Hmm? Oh, what.

RPh: Huh? What are you credentials?

Me: What.

RPh: *quickly getting exasperated* Your credentials??

Me: What?

Giving up, my pharmacist walks back to her counter, gets her credentials, and puts them in. So I show her my credentials for the day: WUT.