Guess how much training pharmacists get in pain medicine and pain medication over their 4 years of schooling?
1 day! That’s out of 4 years, which is 1,460 days. So about 0.6% of their time - less than 1% of their training. But guess how much of their day involves working with pain medication prescriptions… 25%! Not a great match up of training to job demands.
Some of my patients have remarked they feel like they’re treated like drug addicts when they fill their prescriptions. Or even worse, if they go to fill their narcotic prescription early for some reason. The results of a study can explain why…
Dr. Karen Marlowe, Pharm.D., studied pharmacists in Alabama and found these results:
- pharmacists thought that requesting an early refill of a prescription was a sign of addiction
- they felt uncomfortable dispensing narcotics
- female pharmacists were more likely to give out an emergency supply of narcotics than male pharmacists
- 48% of male pharmacists and 35% of female pharmacists thought physicians overprescribe medication to patients with pain
- pharmacists’ main concern was correctly following laws and regulations about pain medication
- most thought their knowledge of pain management and narcotics was good or excellent - an especially interesting finding, given the 1% training time noted above
I don’t present this study to put down pharmacists. Instead, I thought it showed just one more place, of the many in our society, where more knowledge about pain and pain treatment might make a world of difference.
3 responses so far ↓
Louise // Feb 14, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Thank you for this article about pharmacists and pain medications! I have been through this so many times and been made to feel like an addict or a bad person. It is sad that people like me who live in chronic pain have to also endure being treated like 3rd class citizens. It’s bad enough that we spend so much time looking for a Doctor who will help us find out what’s wrong with us and being treated badly by many in the medical field also. I am printing this out to show my family because they have a hard time believing I have so much trouble with this. I had a pharmacist refuse to fill my prescriptions once because he said I shouldn’t be taking all of the medicines my Doctor prescibed. I think it is so wrong that not only the insurance companies, but now pharmacists have the power to over ride Doctors orders. Again, thank you for making people aware of some of the problems we have to face.
Sincerely,
L.VanValkenburgh
anonymous // May 5, 2007 at 1:43 pm
The 1% comment is not accurate at all. I’m a pharmacist. I couldn’t give a % actually. In school we hit drugs from a few ways: chemistry, pharmacology, clinical, interactions with other meds, etc. The pharmacy curriculum overlaps again and again. But to say that 1 day in school is what we get is beyond ridiculous. Also, the 25% comment is not accurate. It would be less - a guess - 1/10th maybe. The study seems reasonable that you cite though. Many pharmacists think they are “the prescription police.” Females worse than males. Younger worse than older. Get a different pharmacy for better treatment. Stay away from chains. Also, and this is important, plan ahead. Most customers don’t plan ahead with meds. So, if they don’t get their meds it is their own fault for not planning their lives.
HtCwP // May 23, 2007 at 12:54 pm
HtCwP says…
As they say, I don’t make the news, I just report it.
What do you think about a guest interview here at HowToCopeWithPain for your perspective?
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