Calgary Dad Suing Shoppers Drug Mart

[puckluck2]

Originally Posted by GGG

From an SDM perspective wouldnt insuring the pharmicist is licensed with the governing body be enough to to say they werent negligent. They did what was required by law. What else should have SDM done presuming the pharmisist isnt the owner of the SDM

I'm not sure, I don't have the details of the case. And having a license has nothing to do with being negligent or not. You can't ignore negligence complaints because the Pharmacist is licensed. Anyone can be negligent. Did SDM know he was being negligent and did nothing to stop it? I'm not sure but let's pretend that was the case don't you think they should be held responsible?

[macrov]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

In your clear incredible knowledge of this, do you realize that Pharmacists are independent professionals? The The College of Pharmacy is responsible for insuring the competence of their Pharmacists, not SDM. How the hell is SDM corporate acting "grossly negligent"?

Get off your Internet distance fuelled high horse.

The oversights occurred at the corporate level, not the pharmacist level. If the pharmacist didn't follow procedures then sue the pharmacist. If the pharmacist did follow procedures but the information relied on was incomplete or severely lacking, that's a corporate issue. In this case the lack of information provided led to death.

My understanding is that pharmacists would depend on a central database for a lot of the drug information - such as side effects associated with the drug, and how often to take it, and with what. Correct me if I'm wrong; I'm genuinely interested.

Logically then, a pharmacist at SDM then would use the SDM database. So SDM, the corporation, becomes liable if there are oversights and shortcomings with their database and policies. And in this case their clearly was an oversight.

If the oversight is idiosyncratic, thats negligence. If oversights are systemic and systematic, thats probably gross negligence because its evidence of not providing the proper level of care and misrepresentation the safety profile of drugs to customers.

In this case, my belief is that the oversight is systematic not idiosyncratic because SDM corporate personnel have said the side effects that make it on to those sheets is limited to 5 or less so as not to scare people. That may make sense for some drugs, but certainly not all. Furthermore, to rank the side effects based on likelihood of occurance with no weight given to the severity of the side effect is an oversight as well.



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[cracher]

^ without any deep insight into the pharmacy world, I highly doubt SDM would develop their own in-house drug database (particularly if they are private franchises). There are already plenty of excellent databases out there… PDR, epocrates. I would guess that they would use maybe some version of the PDR that's a bit more geeked up with crazy pharmacokinetics and half-life charts that nobody but a pharmacist can understand. My money is on the database is standardized across all pharmacies in the nation.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by macrov

The oversights occurred at the corporate level, not the pharmacist level. If the pharmacist didn't follow procedures then sue the pharmacist. If the pharmacist did follow procedures but the information relied on was incomplete or severely lacking, that's a corporate issue. In this case the lack of information provided led to death.

My understanding is that pharmacists would depend on a central database for a lot of the drug information - such as side effects associated with the drug, and how often to take it, and with what. Correct me if I'm wrong; I'm genuinely interested.

Logically then, a pharmacist at SDM then would use the SDM database. So SDM, the corporation, becomes liable if there are oversights and shortcomings with their database and policies. And in this case their clearly was an oversight.

If the oversight is idiosyncratic, thats negligence. If oversights are systemic and systematic, thats probably gross negligence because its evidence of not providing the proper level of care and misrepresentation the safety profile of drugs to customers.

In this case, my belief is that the oversight is systematic not idiosyncratic because SDM corporate personnel have said the side effects that make it on to those sheets is limited to 5 or less so as not to scare people. That may make sense for some drugs, but certainly not all. Furthermore, to rank the side effects based on likelihood of occurance with no weight given to the severity of the side effect is an oversight as well.

Pharmacist knowledge and pharmacist competence is not checked by anyone except the college of pharmacy who licenses the pharmacist.

There is no database. What is counseled on is up to the pharmacist, based on his knowledge and his discretion. The college of pharmacy sets the standards of practice, not any corporation.

SDM corporate has no oversight on how the pharmacist counsels. None. It's not their role whether independently owned or not. They decide which pharmacy software you use to process prescriptions and how the pharmacy looks, but not what the pharmacist knows or how they use that knowledge. That is the college's role as we are a self regulating profession.

Look. If you were genuinely interested, you would've asked questions. Instead, you throw around accusations like "gross negligence" because you feel some sort of Internet outrage.

Maybe educate yourself first before spewing

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by puckluck2

I'm not sure, I don't have the details of the case. And having a license has nothing to do with being negligent or not. You can't ignore negligence complaints because the Pharmacist is licensed. Anyone can be negligent. Did SDM know he was being negligent and did nothing to stop it? I'm not sure but let's pretend that was the case don't you think they should be held responsible?

On that case sure. But how would you know our prove that?

[photon]

Originally Posted by macrov

Do you know what the saddest part of this story is? Its not that this girl died from a rare side-effect. Its that she was experiencing the side-effects that were a known precursor to death for 2 weeks. And she went to the doctor to explain the side effects she was experiencing.

Then shouldn't they be suing the doctor? In my experience with pharmacists if you mention side effects to them they will go to great lengths to research and counsel based on those. This comes from personal experience when my son had an adverse reaction to a medication, the pharmacy spent a great deal of time talking to us, phoning us at home with updates to info they've gathered, etc.

Originally Posted by macrov

The only problem was that the pharmasist who filled her perscription never told her in advance that death was a side-effect, and if she experiences the symptioms she was experiencing she should stop taking the medication immediately or she might die.

You're omniscient then? You don't know this for a fact, that's what the law suit claims, but claims aren't facts.

If they did in fact give out the information sheets, and the doctor prescribed a certain number of refills, the pharmacists isn't going to (and should not be expected to), explain to me in detail all the potential side effects every single time the prescription is refilled. There's a whole lot of assuming going on in your tirades.

[meanmachine13]

Originally Posted by cammy13

That is a birth control pill

Correct. I actually take this specific medication and it is primarily birth control but seconds as an acne control medication.

[FlatLandFlamesFan]

From my knowledge Diane is not recognized as a birth control in Canada it can be used for acne apparently.
From my experience as a pharmacy tech , many doctors will receive a fax request for refills just sign it and send it back. Without IMHO really looking them over. or having seen the patient in an appropriate time frame.
At this point the pharmacy assumes the doctor has intended to continue the prescription for x months.
In Alberta Prescriptions are also filled for 3 months at a time ,this severely reduces the chance of someone realizing how long a patient has been on said medication when you see them every 90 days.
And many young girls picking up medication won't say boo let alone reply "yes I do have a question about this medication" , many of them don't even pick up their own medication as their parents pick it up for them.

All that being said it is a tragedy that this has happened ,and I'm sure all the pharmacists at that store feel awefull.

[Minnie]

Originally Posted by FlatLandFlamesFan

In Alberta Prescriptions are also filled for 3 months at a time

That's not an across the board thing. It really can be dependent on your insurance. Ours will fill some things for 3 months, but not others. Something like this, knowing the way our insurance tends to work, they would fill this for a month at a time only, and call it a 'trial drug.'