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Originally Posted by ScottKuma
Simply put:
A pharmacist can refuse to issue ANY medication, for ANY reason. This is simply to protect his/her license and/or liability against lawsuits. For example, if a person comes in with a perfectly valid script for Oxycontin, but the druggist knows that the person has come in with three other scripts in the same week, s/he can refuse to fill it.
Either way, go down the street a bit and I'm SURE there is a pharmacist willing to fill the script.
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We are pretty much taught from day one we have the right to refuse any prescription. Most of us are sane enough to only do so when we have reason to believe it's fake, or if it's going to kill the patient. However, there are always some bad apples.
This in the news is a hot topic of discussion at school today (considering we're all going to be pharmacists) and it was talked about extensively in a class. I'm going to try and line up some facts for anyone who cares.
***Some of this may only apply to IL law, since that is the only state law that I am familiar with.
As previosuly stated, pharmacists reserve the right to refuse to fill any prescription. However, company policy may say otherwise and it may very well result in a loss of your job.
The law is not clear cut on who actually "owns" the prescription, however my opinion, and the general consensus of professors and students at my school says that it's essentially the patient's until the prescritpion is filled, in which case the law states it becomes property of the pharmacy (NOT pharmacist, unless s/he is the owner) for record keeping purposes. Thus, this pharmacist should have given it back, and I think.
As Dr Susan Winkler said (she is even a prof at my school!!) it is extremely rare a pharmacist refuse to fill something on moral grounds, and even more so for one to refuse to transfer it to another store. The ONLY time both should happen is if the pharmacist believes it is fake. Even if we know the script could kill the patient, we should still transfer it or return it.
This is not the first time something like this has happened, and is likely not the last. A more controversial medication is the Day After Pill, or Plan B. Since some people gauge this as a form of abortion, there are a number of pharmacists who will not fill it. However, almost all should return the Rx or transfer it to another store for you. Any who doesnt, well is an asshole and extremely unprofessional as far as i'm concerned.
This pharmacist is generally considered a jerk by most of my peers, and I imagine will be shunned by a large part of the parmacy community. It's not as bad as that asshole who was diluting chemo drugs a few years back and did a lot of damage to the image of the pharmacist, but it still is unnaccpetable behavior in my eyes.
I would not refuse to work with this person however, as because then if I was in the store, I would willingly fill the scripts that s/he doesn't want to. heh.
I've rambled enough, and I hope I've helped some people understand a little more about what's going on here. If anyone has any questions or issues about pharmacy they'd like cleared up, you're free to PM me.
If you're still reading clear down here, congratulations!
