Quick story left over from this weekend. I was discharged Friday afternoon, given a two page print out listing all my medications. The nurse went over the whole thing with me, so did the nurse practitioner. Along with all the other meds, my instructions were to take two separate antibiotics, Cipro and Bactrim—with my immune system MIA somethings has got to fight off possible infections. I asked why two antibiotics, wouldn’t one do the trick?  My mother asked the same.

“This is broad spectrum treatment,” we were told.

Oh, thats sounds good.

Later that evening I pick up my grocery bag of medications from the pharmacy, they had been called in prior to my arrival for convenience. Just before bed we dump out all my pills, damn no Bactrim. Things get frantic, I want the broad spectrum—the good stuff—so I call the pharmacist. No dice. The pharmacist won’t give us the prescription, has to be doctor’s orders. Frustration sets in, I’m not an (antibiotic) junkie, I don’t deserve this.
Luckily, the pharmacist is top notch, she calls the doctor herself, speaks to the doctor on the phone. The doctor on-call says no way, no Bactrim. Now I’m seething, after all the talk of broad spectrum treatment and avoiding sickness at any cost, I want everything to operate on schedule. I just left the hospital after five days—five days with tubes in my arm, receiving horse serum intravenuosly. My body does not want anything from a horse, trust me it told me so. I assumed the worst, just another example of orders getting lost in this overbloated system. I ramble on about broad spectrum treatment, without knowing what it really means. My mother calms me down, talks practical, says if it was a mistake we will fix it on Monday.Very long story short, I find out to today taking Bactrim would have been counterproductive. It lowers blood cell counts—yea, those those same things I’m trying to recover.

I’ll hand out the awards. The doctor on call gets a gold star. She could of been pissed off she was being hassled late at night, not looked at my chart and said whatever it’s only an antibiotic, give it to him. She didn’t.  The pharmacist, gold star as well. I placed my call at 9p.m., that’s closing time. She could of ignored it and left me to go mad, no one likes being stopped on their way out the door. To the nurse and nurse practitioner, nothing. All things medicine need to be checked no less than three times. No excuses. I know, I work for a doctor and screwed up before—it happens–but when it does, it shouldn’t. And if you find yourself making mistakes often, find a new line of work. Healthcare is one of those fields where tiny mistakes lead to big problems. Maybe this was the first time both of them made a med mistake, maybe after a stern talking, they’ll be extra cautious and it will never happen again, A real learning experience.

Situations like this are exceedingly annoying because it’s one of those things where the patient is at the mercy of the system. I’ve tried hard to think of some way to be more proactive and make sure it doesn’t happen again—but it’s not there. It was standard protocol, nurse gives you a list of discharge meds that the doctor ordered. If something in that transition goes wrong, you’re screwed. The only solution is the three times rule, all things healthcare need to be checked three times. If it’s wrong after that, heads have to roll.

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