I'll refrain from re-posting the article, but in short, a pharmacist refused to fill a college student's script for birth control and also refused to transmit it to another pharmacy for fear of committing a sin and suffering "spiritual pain."
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To be fair, the pharmacist has a point - I may not feel "spiritual anguish", but I do feel guilty for being a jerk without provocation and not doing things the way I feel they should be done or not doing my mandatory good deed for the day.
I would like to think I could do something because otherwise "I couldn't live with myself," but I haven't been placed in a situation where that was a deciding factor.
Whether or not that is license to make a decision like this one is another matter entirely.
Taking the gig. While it was pointed out last go-round that someone getting their pharmacy degree 20 years ago could not be expected to forsee this problem, in this case, Noesen should not have been filling in at a pharmacy that sold BC unless he was going to fill prescriptions for it. At the very least, he should have discussed the issue beforehand.
Asking her what the pills were for. That is an entirely inappropriate question. I can think of NO reason why this would be his concern. (If there is a professional reason, please clarify it for me.)
Refusing not merely to find another pharmacist (I assume, although the article does not state that Phiede asked him to); but even after the patient found another pharmacy, refusing to transfer the prescription. That is, effectively holding the prescription hostage! Short of a prescription believed to be bogus, that seems to be an incredible (and I mean that quite literally -- I find it hard to believe!) breach of professional ethics.
I hope they take his license away, or at LEAST suspend it.
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Well, he is toast. He did break the law...the script didn't belong to him, and when another pharmacy called for it to be transfered, he refused to do so, placing the patient at risk.
He should (and probably will) loose his job, and his license.
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The holding the prescription hostage is just plain wrong, and deserves professional sanction. Accepting even a fill-in job without get acceptance for the desired moral exceptions up front is dishonest.
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Hey Dag...whenever I get too down about the way things are going here at Hatrack, I remember that fist discussion...even though we were discussing a very touchy subject, we (you and I) were always fairly considerate of the others opinions.
Even when it got personal for a bit with some others, and insulting, we made it work, because the subject mattered...and because we cared about how the other people in the thread thought and felt.
I think that we understood each other a lot better by the end of that conversation that a lot of people, and even though we didn't agree about everything we at least understood the others position better.
I don't see a lot of that....I guess the word I am thinking of is respect.
Even when Alucard jumped on me, we sat down and talked about it rather than turning it into a pigpile...because we all believed that the other people in that thread deserved at least a little respect..that even if their views were opposing ours they might have still had a valid point.
Once all was said and done, I had even more respect for you, Alucard, Sara...and many others..than I had had before that thread, because we had actually discussed the ramifications.
I don't know about you, but some of my opinions changed on those points...not my core beliefs, but I was a lot more willing to see the other viewpoint than I was before that conversation.
Not necessarily agree with it, but to admit it raised some serious issues that I might not have considered before....and the topic wasn't new to me, having worked in the medical profession.
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So when are they going to start requesting marriage licenses before filling prescriptions of Viagra? Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Yeah that pharmacist was out of line. I can understand not wanting to fill it himself (although I would have), but refusing to allow her to have it filled elsewhere is actually confiscating property that isn't his - The Prescription.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:While it was pointed out last go-round that someone getting their pharmacy degree 20 years ago could not be expected to forsee this problem.
First off, I would like to point out that pharmacies have been filling prescriptions for contraceptives for a lot longer than 20 years. I doubt that there is even one pharmacist licensed today who received his degree at a time when pharmacies did not fill prescriptions for birth control medication and devices.
Second, the pharmacist in question is 30 years old. There is no question that he knew at the time he obtained his license as a pharmacist that he would be required to fill prescriptions for birth control. It's possible, that he has since then become a devout catholic and it has changed his perspective -- but it does not change his ethical obligations as a pharmacist.
This guy is way out of line. If his religion prohibits him from filling prescriptions, he needs to find another profession.
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Rabbit, as I understand it, concerns that the Pill may prevent the implantation of an already-fertilized egg (which some view as a form of abortion) are fairly recent.
Previous cited articles on the subject mentioned that concern, not so much issues with contraception generally. I have no idea what precisely this pharmacist's beef was -- nor do I care. When he took the job, he should have reasonably expected to be asked to dispense birth control. Moreover, as Kwea pointed out, this was true when he would have gotten his license as well. And while it is conceivable ( ) that he only discovered the issue that bothers him between the time he trained and the time of the incident, somehow I doubt it was after the time he took the job.
quote: This guy is way out of line. If his religion prohibits him from filling prescriptions, he needs to find another profession.
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The guy says that persecution is good for him. I think it's possible he took this job just so he would have this chance to refuse a prescription for birth control and make an issue of this. Can anyone say psychological complex? Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Since it seems necessary to say again, if this person owned their own pharmacy, or worked for a pharmacy which allowed him to refuse filling the prescription, the law should not prevent him from doing so.
Not the way this guy did it, but the underlying principle of freedom of conscience must remain legal.
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This article does not mention whether or not the employer allowed him to refuse the treatment.
On the assumption that the employer did allow it, the man in question he did precisely the right thing in refusing the pill, given his beliefs. If he believed he was contributing to a murder, it is his responsibility to refuse the prescription, because it is his duty as a pharmacist and person to try to do the right thing and avoid harm. Any "right" of a customer to be able to purchase what they expect to be able to purchase is secondary to that. Thus there should be no sanctions on this sort of behavior. In fact, this pharmacist should be praised for daring to do what he believed was the right thing, even at a personal cost.
However, if his employer did hire him on the assumption that he'd sell the pill, he should quit or be fired. Since it says he's a "former" pharmacist, he probably did, or was.
EDIT: As for transferring the prescription, the pharmacist has a responsibility to give back to the customer whatever the customer gave them. Otherwise, it would be stealing. That means if the prescription was written on a paper, he must give that paper back.
However, he has no responsibility to (in fact, based on his beliefs, he has a moral responsibility not to) take it upon himself to send the prescription to another pharmacy. That would be assisting in what he believes is a murder just as much as giving out the pill in the first place would be.
I am not sure how prescriptions are sent in everywhere, but if the doctor's office merely phoned the description in, or sent it electronically, then there is nothing to be given back to the customer, and thus nothing was stolen. The doctor's office should resend the prescription, in that case.
Of course, this would all be complicated if the pharmacy has an agreement with the doctor's office about sending prescriptions elsewhere, or if the employer of the pharmacist expects him to send unfilled prescriptions elsewhere. This article doesn't mention any of those details, though.
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Well Xap....fortunatly for those of us who go to these places for medical help, the medical profession disagrees with your evaluation of his responsibilities. He DOES have a responsibility to refer them, under current medical practices.
I know, from the other thread, that you don't care about the standard medical practices of western medicine.
That just makes me very glad that you aren't in charge of them...
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) that he only discovered the issue that bothers him between the time he trained and the time of the incident, somehow I doubt it was after the time he took the job.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
