“How do we ensure our patient drops and loses ~80% of his pills and that he slices the absolute fuck out of his fingers in the process?”

They’re locking my mental health goals behind a fidgety Saw trap built from scissors and miserliness.

I’ve had boxes where there were several single pills snipped from their blister packs rattling around in them. These pills in particular are tiny, like you can’t even feel them in your mouth when you take them, but they expect me to be able to finesse one out of a single blister with at least 3 extremely sharp and piercing corners on it 😒

If you’re a pharmacist and you do this, please go ahead and take the pills yourself, you clearly need 'em more than I do, ya sick fuck.

  • kungen@feddit.nuEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    There are bottles as well, but it’s not as common. And they’re factory-produced bottles that are tamper resistant – not like those orange ones in the US. So it’s basically the same safety as blisters, other than its easier for the patient to spill.

    I’m not 100% sure, but I think most of the groundwork for this situation is from EU Directive 2001/83/EC. Medical products need to have a lot of information provided, and it just gets simpler to have boxes with blisters to meet all the requirements, and gives safety at the same time.

    I can’t imagine how hectic it must be for pharmacy techs in the US. Despite requiring 5 years of school to be a pharmacist here, the job is basically being a glorified cashier… Unless the person has any questions, you simply check their ID, check in the national registry that enough time has passed since their last collection (particularly if it’s a controlled substance), collect a package from the shelf, print out a label to put on the box (containing their name, doctor, dosage, instructions), scan the label and package, collect payment, and that’s it.