It seems customers have lost the plot when it comes to owings. I am not sure if this is the same general term used overseas, but in Australia, when we give a few tablets to get someone by if deemed urgent enough if they don’t have a script (but we have evidence of their medication history), we give them an ‘owing’ (usually between one and three days supply).

I get that this image isn't totally relevant to the post, but I like it, so there.

Do you think we are given an “allowance” for how many mistakes, or how serious a mistake, we can make before we need to be deregistered? A Detroit website has posted an article regarding a family suing Rite Aid over a dispensing error (http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/22035731/detail.html). The family are also chasing up the oncologist for writing an incorrect script.

The article  is an interesting read, a very sad read, but one that makes you think about what is an appropriate punishment for these and other dispensing errors. At what point does a license get taken away and you are deemed not competent to work? Even if it’s the first mistake in your career, if it’s a significant one that a reasonable person, or a peer, would think that one of the safeguards or processes in your dispensing should have alerted you to it – should you be deregistered? (more…)