A tribute to the pharmacist

Dear pharmacist, You just paged me and, I must admit, I’m not feeling excited to call back. I estimate that I probably get paged, called, texted or stopped in person by you exactly X·102 per day, where “X” is the number of days I’ve been on service. Despite all of the interactions over the years, I have never stopped to really consider our relationship. Here are a few of our most memorable moments: You once paged me while I was driving home from clinic. I had just finished a hellish day filled with overbooked patients, prior authorization requests and last minute walk-ins. I was relieved just to make it to the end without pulling my hair out (and I’m bald). I finished seeing my last patient, who I diagnosed with pneumonia and prescribed a fluoroquinolone. You called to ask me if I wanted to change the patient’s multivitamin from the morning to the evening; since, (“as you know”) taking supplements that include divalent cations with fluoroquinolones render the antibiotic ineffective. “Of course!” I said, “Thank you for ‘reminding’ me.” Meanwhile, I took a moment to file that away, because — as a so-called infectious disease specialist — that’s probably something I should already know. I’ve learned many helpful tips like this from you over the years. You once paged me while I was working in the ICU. I was admitting a patient to the unit in wide open septic shock and multi-organ failure. In fact, I had just finished intubating, placin...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Physician Hospital Medications Source Type: blogs