If you and I weren't nice Christian ladies, I would suggest that you wave your fist in that cardiologist's face and say, "Oh yeah?! Suck THIS up!"Cute, Barbara!
So, my GP talked to the cardiologist who said he put me on the aspirin and blood thinner for a reason and I should just suck it up and not worry about the bruising unless I have other bleeding as PF said.
My doctor is fuming! She didn't send me to this guy, the hospital did and while she isn't a cardiologist she said my tests don't seem so bad - that the angiogram is just to be safe and with my other conditions she is worried more about the drugs and the bruising than me having a heart attack. She is going to get me in to see a new cardiologist ASAP. She won't change the medication until she can get the second opinion but if I have other symptoms I am to go off the aspirin first and then contact her office ASAP.
My doctor is really good (she actually phoned me today twice and the cardiologist on her day off because the receptionist thought it was serious enough to contact her). She wants us to photograph the bruising and I need to phone in the morning for an emergency appointment to see her as she is fully booked. They know I will be calling but they have to follow procedure.
This is the second time a doctor has told me to "suck it up". The first one was an orthopedic surgeon who said that no one would touch my knee for 10 years and I would just have to suck it up with the pain and inability to walk. I had the replacement surgery 6 months later by another doctor who when it was done said I couldn't have waited one year let alone 10!
I made a few small mistakes when I started working but honestly not even 1 after a few months of working there. You get so used to it that you can tell what a medication is without the package. We often had stray pills that fell out and I could identify them all just by look. We were not allowed to use the meds that were not in packages for patients but since we all knew exactly what they were, we put them in our first aid kit at work.
A stockfile is the record of all products that are in the pharmacy. When we receive an item it is captured on the computer system.
As a pharmacist you can then type in the name of any medication and the stockfile will show how many of that item are in store. Does this help?
So if you go back and say they gave you less they can check.
For example if they type in Vicodin and the stockfile says there are 500 Vicodin's in store but there are actually 510 then they can see you didn't receive your meds.
We did stocktaking once a month. Physically counted each pill and capsule by hand. Once a week assistants would also count as much as possible to double check amount.
Pain in the behind
This is why I no longer work in a pharmacy, very stressfull and loads of responsibility!
You have to make sure to give all the right meds, read scripts from Dr's that sometimes write so badly that you can't tell what meds to give, mix liquid antibiotics and meds that come in powder form with distilled water and make sure you get the quantities just right. Make sure you don't use measuring jugs that are meant for toxic fluids, check patient allergies so you don't kill anyone and the list goes on!!!
your description of the work you did as a pharmacist's aide(?) was interesting to read. i can see how the heavy responsibilities together with the speed and accuracy demands of such work would turn many workers away, particularly the sensitive or highly nervous types.
it's good to know that there is a way to catch mistakes such as the one i experienced with the pharmacist and the vicodin. in this instance it is just as important to me that the pharmacist can be made to see that i, the patient, am not just trying to score some extra vicodins.
