Ignorance in Silence

The first hour of the BOP meeting today -- watching two pharmacists testifying to gain their livelihood back -- was one of the best spent hours we've had at the COP.

The second hour -- watching ten people write the Executive Director's travel itenerary and jostle over who gets to sleep in the top bunk -- was not.

But more importantly: there was an item on the agenda that we purposefully skipped on the basis that there wasn't enough time to do it all, and thusly it would be a more effective use of our our time to keep us captive with "Where in the World is Carmen SanDirectorofpharmacy?" That item just so happened to be a regulation that will impact your future practice moreso than anything else that will happen this year -- therefore it would make sense to do it in such a fashion that you are unlikely to be present at all...see where I'm going with this?

Those of us that chose to skip lecture and attend the remainder of the BOP meeting (the part that actually mattered) got a shitshow completely unrivaled in magnitude. For those of you not there: the regulation that was open for testimony would allow certified technicians to receive oral prescriptions, oral transfers, and would allow interns without a single day of pharmacy school to engage in professional acts.

Mama Trish brought up the fact that various studies show that even Pharmacists sometimes fail to correctly receive verbal orders and it's unreasonable to expect someone with one less doctorate degree to do something even we fail to do. Students brought up the fact that it makes exactly zero sense to put extra power in the hands of technicians while in no way increasing their certification or training to, y'know, make sure they do stuff right. Uncle Ralph brought up the fact that the proposed regulation is completely at odds with statutes currently on the books and therefore would never stand up in court -- and I'm pretty sure he's good at law or something like that.


"Stop it Ralph, you're making me like you and stuff"
After probably ten or so people testified ALL AGAINST the proposed regulation, a student directly asked the Director of the BOP what the argument in support of this regulation actually was. The answer was that "It happens all the time anyway." Nevermind patient safety: this guy just cited the landmark court case of "Smoking V. Boy's Bathroom" -- everybody does it anyway, so we should just institutionalize it. With zero comment as to the demonstrated dangers of this. With zero refutation of the fact that this flies in the face of "best practices" as defined by several organizations. With zero comment as to the fact that Bouvie just legally kicked the proposed regulation in the jimmies.

Everybody does it, so we should just legalize it.

If you're the director of a board responsible for the direction of an entire profession in a state and the most eloquent argument you have is on the same level of why little kids pee in the pool, you should rethink your position.

The regulation was shelved with a 3-3 tie.

What. The. Fuck.

Today's awesome is a metaphor for what may happen at the next BOP meeting when they take the issue up again:


Deal with it.