Near miss

On Friday, I nearly contributed to a dispensing error if my colleague did not intercept. I sent out a basket containing atenolol + bisoprolol. There was an instruction that medicine was from TTSH and I also could not be bothered to check. Thank God a pharmacist happened to dispense that one. Otherwise, I wonder whether an error would really happen. Sigh.. When my friend pointed to me, I thought I stick labels wrongly. Only after a moment, I was "oh shit, 2 beta blockers". Oh noo... Viva and competency exam are coming.. How am I gonna survive :(

Lessons I learnt:

1. Do not go work when not 100% fit (I was still recovering from stomach flu.. Too bad only 1 day of MC was given. Sigh)

2. Do not be lazy to check CPRS, especially if patient was from other hospitals. To be honest, I was getting complacent to check. I thought when the dispenser is giving the medicines to the patient, the patient would realise any problem. WRONG WRONG WRONG! Bleah.. Better not to have this stupid wrong mentality. When there is transcribing of record, there is 90% chance mistake. For this case, the doctor did not even realise that both atenolol and bisoprolol were copied and pasted. Gosh!

This just highlights that pharmacy should not be equated to McDonalds'. Last PSS session was horrifying when he expected that we could meet publics expectations. When one shot back, "But healthcare IS different from McD", he shot back. "It is always YOU (refering to people in healthcare) thinking that yourselves are different".

I posted this on my fb: 

"It's amazing how anybody would expect pharmacy's waiting time to McD's. Firstly, people don't buy MONTHS and MONTHS worth of McD meals at 1 go. Secondly, if I order a cheeseburger and I get a Big Mac, I will go home fat and happy. But if I order 50mg atenolol and I get 100mg atenolol, I will go to A&E, and I will definitely send complaint letters to MP, newspaper, stomp, etc. Please, healthcare is not fast food. They are different. One is for the ill, the other one is for those who wanna fall ill"

I am glad I got 30 likes. I am glad that many agree with me. Well my point is not saying that healthcare being special or something. It is just that we are dealing with life and we are expected to have 0% error, which is very very difficult. Anyway I believe in 3 golden rules of service: Cheap and Good won't be Fast, Good and Fast won't be Cheap, Cheap and Fast won't be Good. Anyway, if our service is really that bad and people can't stop complaining, they can always go elsewhere you know. It is free market. If you want cheap and good, then come public establishment. If you want good and fast, then you go private hospitals but be ready to pay. If you want cheap and fast (and hassle-free), JB is there for a reason. If you want all three, please go and die, you won't find something like that in this world.

Of course, there are some of my friends who disagree with me (oh yeah! you are on the right track to be those stupid people on top!). I am amazed that after almost 9 months on the ground, you are still delusional to think that there is a thing called "best counselling" in order to make people appreciate us. Come on! Open your eyes big big! Those who appreciate us, will always appreciate us because they know what we do. Those who do not appreciate us, they will never will because they don't know what we do. And by spending more time talking with them, that's not gonna make your counselling "better". And oh please, how on earth you gonna make a "Take this 1 tablet 3 times a day with food. It will make you drowsy" better or even best?

And to the people on top, please do not forget where you come from? I am sure you were once at our stage with all this shit circumstances. Have you done anything to make our circumstances better? Otherwise, you have no right to point fingers at us. We are already at our maximum. I don't know in other places but in my place, the longest waiting time is always due to interventions. And to be honest, cannot blame the doctors completely too, they also have patients on hand, so waiting is unavoidable. 

Oh and the almight CEO thinks automation will solve all the problems. I had experience with machines and guess what, it will only pack faster. At most it cuts down 10 minutes? Does the machine check for prescription requirements? Drug interactions? Doses? Does the machine top up and clean itself? No, no, no, no.. With so many human involvement, waiting time is unavoidable. And if anything goes wrong, will you blame the machines? No, you will blame us again..

And for people still comparing us to fast food, I just have something for you think about: Imagine if all customers in McDonalds want to buy months worth of meals at one go. Yes thousands of burgers, of fries, of drinks, of desserts. And for one meal, people don't only eat 1 burger you know (well people can take 10 tablets three times a day). Tell me whether McDonalds still can give you what you want in 5 minutes? Hoho.. Even for a delivery of 25 people, it can make errors. I am sure you all have experienced it. Nuff said! Don't compare.