Drug seeking patient with chronic toothache returned to the ED claiming that someone had stolen his Lortab prescription generously written to him during the previous shift by one of our more easily persuaded/fooled physician in the group. I quickly looked in his halitotic mouth. Rotten molars worn down to the nubbins."I left it right there on the counter and someone stole it!" he claimed.
"Did they steal your Penicillin prescription, too?" I played along.
"No. I still got it right here."
"That's so terrible!" I empathized. "Some people, stealing other people's prescription like that, un-buh-lievable!"
"Yeah, can you give me another prescription?" he asked
"Why certainly! I'll write ya somethin' that they won't steal!" I answered accomodatingly and whipped out the prescription pad.
Rx: Motrin, 800mg
dsp: #10 (ten)
sig" 1 PO Q4h w/food prn
Hehehe. The guy was, needless to say, quite pissed and went ballistic. Couldn't stand the crushing logic. Had to be escorted out by hospital security.
16 comments:
Will you come and work at my hospital?
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So ... can you not look up whether the original script was filled already? Or is there no way of checking that online?
Do they really think staff is that stupid or are they just desperate? Sad, really.
I read your comment on Lynn's blog about taking care of your elderly parents and I was moved by your dedication and obvious love for your parents. It seems that in today's throw away society people are willing to forget their parents too.
I wish I could take my elderly Mom in (she's 83) but we don't have the set up for it or the finances to change that right now. However, she still likes living independently and is only 5 minutes away from me. I have her set up with the Lifeline program.
It is bittersweet to see parents age. Sometimes, emotionally I want to distance because it hurts so much to see her declining and I hate thinking of losing her. I know that happens to everyone and is part of life, but still.
She left my father when I was a little girl and we moved in with her parents, so she was there for their latter years. their doctor told my mother that they would not have lived as long if it were not for her being there for them.
I am an only child and I am currently finding it hard to discuss (I would like to handle her bills) her finances because she is so private and I can see she is not making it to the end of the month. She is stubborn and probably afraid of giving up control. I just want to get in there and see what is what and then we can work on it together. As it is we are kicking in for the 2nd half of her month. I really wish I had a sibling to help me.
I find that I am so good with working with the elderly patient population and feel like a failure with my own Mom.
Sorry, I got off topic. Really just admire your love for your parents. You sound like a good man. :)
Let's see:
My ex-girlfriend stole it"
"I lost the bottle"
"I lost the prescription"
"The bottle fell in the lake"
"The prescription blew out the window."
Uh-Uh. I did NOT just get off the boat.
Seaspray, isn't Charity just the coolest? I cried when I read his post (Charity, your post made my millenium). I started to reply several times, but I shorted out my keyboard. What was most poignant was another reply another doc left on my comment page. I was so moved by his comment about Charity's decision, I had to sit down and blog about it all over again. Charity, from what I've been hearing in my puny part of the flotsam, your decision has evoked some truly thoughtful and damned scary questions. My heart and thoughts are with you and your family.
We used to call around to the other local ER's to see if the same patient had been there that day, also. I eventually came to the conclusion that some people's main focus in life is to make the rounds of all the local ER's to ask for narcotics. I still can't understand how they tolerate the boredom of the long waits. I always wanted to say to these people: "Geez, dude, GO TO THE LIQUOR STORE---it's easier, you don't have to wait, you can get high from booze, and it only takes 5 minutes."
There's no central database to check whether a patient has filled a prescription. You would have to call the pharmacy they say they went to and ask the pharmacist to check the status.
It amazes me how much more frequently narcotics and tranquilizers dive in to the sink or trash compared to blood pressure or cholesterol meds.
one day when I was the BOD (Bitch of the Day) aka triage nurse at the oncology office, I received a phone call from the local pharmacy. Apparently, one of our patients of rather dubious repute had been going around town to his various physicians getting Percocet scripts filled. He definitely needed pain medication for his condition, but he had been getting close to 300 tablets within a 2 week time period!
we figured he'd gotten lazy or stupid and didn't realize the pharmacy chain had a computer system tracking his scripts. his liver panel was fine; so, we figured he was selling the pills for $$. we decided to reduce and watch the meds we wrote for him.
i think the physician spoke to the patient, but i don't remember. crazy, huh?
In my days, I used to ask the doc to prescribe me the real stuff in sufficient quantity, please, as I would not like to annoy him or his colleagues all the time. Worked well :)
That is very funny.
As a pharmacy intern who has seen so many fake Rxs for Lortab, this post has made my day.
LOL....that was funny. Your reaction was great. I am still a medical student so all these stories are some kind of advice for me.
George
I really did loose a prescription - but it was only for Dolobid. But you never get patients showing up in th ER asking you to replace their Dolobid?
I once saw some meth heads try to get painkillers from our family md. When they came into the waiting room they started wrapping filthy ace bandages around their wrists. One of them tried to distract him, while the other tried to find one of his script pads. Our md had to yell at them to leave several times and looked like he was about to punch them out.
Hello!
I just stumbled across your blog and read your post. Most of it had me lmao because what you've experienced is so fucking true. My Mom used to be an LPN in an E.R. and she would tell us stories like this over the family dinner table, (on the nights she wasn't working a graveyard, of course). Anyway, I remember a few years ago when I had a kidney stones. (turned out I had multiple stones in each kidney just waiting to come down. ugh). In the waiting room I overheard a guy who just came in from outside: "The Dr. just wrote me a prescription for my hurt arm about three hours ago and I accidentally let go of it while outside and the wind blew it away. Can he write me another?" I seriously nearly lol'ed though my legitimate pain at that.
~Ami
Re: I once saw some meth heads try to get painkillers from our family md. When they came into the waiting room they started wrapping filthy ace bandages around their wrists.
Proof that meth kills brain cells. They could have at LEAST wrapped the bandages around their wrist BEFORE stepping into the clinic. x_X;
Re: One of them tried to distract him, while the other tried to find one of his script pads.
What fine, fine examples of humanity. My dentist doesn't even use prescription pads anymore. It's all on computer/palm pilot where she can just type it out and send it off to whatever pharmacy the patient uses. I think it's a very small idea to deter the script-thieves. Plus, don't they know that the pharmacy checks up on the scripts?? At least they should if they want to do things right. But, hey, maybe a long-term jail sentence is just the thing to cure those 'painkiller blues'?
~Ami
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