I’m playing some weird game with the nurse, the pharmacy, and the doctor.
The doctor prescribes me something but the opinionated Irish nurse believes the medication is “voodoo science” and “forgets” to phone it in.
I go to the pharmacy and make an ass out of myself, insisting that the scrip has to be there and pharmacists need to keep looking for it.
Then I call the doctor, he tells the nurse to phone in the prescription, I go back to the pharmacy. . . and the whole thing repeats itself.
The fact that my student works at the pharmacy and greets me with a joyful and loud, “Hey, professor, how sick are you that you have to be here so often?!? Hey, everybody, this is my professor!” adds an extra layer of enjoyment to the whole experience.
Clarissa's Blog 
What’s the over/under on her not actually a nursing degree of any kind? Medical assistants LOVE it when people call them nurses (because they only have an associate’s maybe.) Nurses hate that, and automatically correct others. “I’m a nurse, isn’t Cindy the medical assistant wonderful?”
“Voodoo science “my foot. What a passive-aggressive imbecilic troglodytic ass.
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I feel like I’m in the midst of some weird ideological battle when all I want to do is just take the medication and forget about it. 🙂
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I don’t know if this is true everywhere, but in my state one of the differences between nurses and medical assistants is that the nurses can phone in prescriptions for a doctor and medical assistants can’t.
In any case, I hope you get the medicine and feel better soon.
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I would find a different doctor (one with a better nursing staff) and a different pharmacy. The nurse has no business overruling the doctor. That’s literally insane.
And it’s a violation of your privacy to have one of your students seeing your prescriptions.
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I left my previous pharmacy because a student came to work there. And then another student joined my new pharmacy as well! I’m running out of pharmacies!
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The nurse is behaving in an unethical fashion. Actually, the student’s behavior is worse. I believe that it is a violation of HIPPA for someone to say anything in public about a patient relationship.
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Does your state have verified prescriptions?
I remember having emergency dental work done in one US state where I was handed a computer-printed prescription on forgery-resistant paper. I was told that the state didn’t allow prescriptions to be “called in” without the prescription being added to a statewide system, and that the doctor himself would have to write a new prescription for refills beyond those on the printed prescription.
NHS is now implementing a digital prescription service where you don’t need paper at all — the prescription is “booked” into the system and you can have it filled anywhere you like.
The person you’re dealing with may actually be an assistant with no authority to prescribe anything at all, and that she’s simply pretending that she actually has any power in the matter.
If she can’t legally write a prescription, and if she’s interfering with the ability of the doctor to prescribe for his patients, then she’s doing something legally actionable that the doctor should know about.
It may be worth dropping by the doctor’s office for any refills just so you have a printed copy of the prescription in the meantime — then Little Miss Blarney can’t screw things up for you …
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Somehow, it’s all done over the phone. I wonder about the procedure as well.
But the third time was the charm: I did finally get my voodoo pills. 🙂
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“Hi, this is Doctor Smiley, I’d like to order two bales of cocaine for one of my patients …”
“WHAT?”
“Just kidding — can you fill this 180-day supply of oxycodone?”
“Oh, yeah, sure thing …”
🙂
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I remember having emergency dental work done in one US state where I was handed a computer-printed prescription on forgery-resistant paper. I was told that the state didn’t allow prescriptions to be “called in” without the prescription being added to a statewide system, and that the doctor himself would have to write a new prescription for refills beyond those on the printed prescription.
Those are only for Schedule 2 drugs like oxycontins, phenylephrine, codeine, etc. If for some reason you need Sudafed because your sinuses have gone haywire, they want to make sure you’re not going to cook meth so they register your driver’s license, and you can’t buy more than a certain amount at a time but it’s OTC. Fun times.
The person you’re dealing with may actually be an assistant with no authority to prescribe anything at all, and that she’s simply pretending that she actually has any power in the matter.
People with authority like that don’t bother with the dumb games like forgetting to call; they flat out refuse.
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