Oral+Presentation+Case+19

= Oral Presentation Case 19 =

//You are a newly employed pharmacist in a busy shopping centre pharmacy. The pharmacy regularly does 500‐600 prescriptions per day, often with only one pharmacist. Half way through your first shift your new boss walks in and sees you counselling a patient. When you get back to the dispensary he is standing next to a line up of 15 new prescriptions waiting to be dispensed, and says “Look at this pile. We don’t have time to talk to customers” and then walks away.

Is this ‘ethical’? What are your options?//

Consequentialism
//benefit:// - popular with boss - in the short term, save boss money by not having to employ another pharmacist //risks:// - patient welfare compromised, preventable drug problems not addressed - breaking pharmacist code of conduct - increase dispensing mistakes - customer's right for adequate consultation time breached - longer waiting time and bad service, therefore less customers, less profit - low personal/job satisfaction ( if dispensing all the time) - unpopular with patients, low patient interaction - exhausted/ worn out by the high number of scripts
 * If I follow boss' orders**

Example
Hi, this is my attempt on this topic, can any one give me some comment?

Thanks

As a pharmacist, there are a lot of duties in our profession. Some people may appreciate our duties but some people may not. Patient counselling is one of my important primary duties. However, my new boss does not like me to talk to my customers because the pharmacy is busy. So, the ethical issue is that whether I should obey my boss’s direction that do not talk to my customers or I should follow what I should do in my duties. I will use rights and duties as the ethical framework. Duties based ethics states that we have certain absolute duties to others, which we must act on if we are to be ethical beings. Firstly, my customers value health outcomes and time. Most of my customers have some medical conditions so they need to take their medication. So, they absolutely want to improve their health outcomes such as reduce the duration of their conditions, free from symptoms and side effects. However, some of them are very busy in their work and family. So, they do not want to spend too much waiting time in a pharmacy. My customers have their rights to discuss about their conditions and medications with health professions, such as pharmacists. These can help them in disease managnent and avoidance of side effects. Secondly, my boss values money. He wants to get more prescriptions in order to make more money. He believes that long waiting time will hesitate his customers to come back again hence lost business eventually. Also, he does not want to increase workforce to deal with this situation. My boss has his right to make more money. However, he has duties to manage the shortage of workforce because shortage of workforce will create a lot of problems such as dispensing errors. Also, shortage of workforce increases the waiting time for patients. When the next time they have their script filled, they will go to another less busy pharmacies. This will reduce the sales of the pharmacy. For myself, as a pharmacist, value reputation and professionalism. I have right to practice my professional judgement to determine what actions I should do. By counselling patients, they appreciate my professionalism and motivation to help them. This can retain the good reputation in pharmacy profession. I also have duties to provide accurate and useful information. This can be achieved by talking to my customers. They can help to avoid side effects and adverse outcomes. I believe that my duty which is providing information to my customers, and my boss duty, which is the workforce management, are equally important. We should act on our duties. These can also respect our customer’s right. Providing accurate and useful information and increasing workforce can reduce dispensing errors and maximise health outcomes. So, they are ethically right to do. In conclusion, it is ethical to talk to my customers even though the pharmacy is very busy. It can maximise the health outcomes to my customers. This is my duties and my customer’s rights.

comments: i like the way you stated all the stake holders' values and applied them logically into the argument.