CTLawyer raises some interesting questions so I asked my pharmacist is licensed in both NY and another state. This is his responses:
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About diagnosing an illness: you think of a podiatrist as a doctor specializing in the foot, think of a pharmacist as specializing in medication. They recommend, they do not diagnose. If I were to say “you have the flu, take medication x”, CTLawyer is correct. What I should and do say is “You sound like you have the flu, I would try X.” The latter is not a diagnosis, it is a recommendation – well within my licensure.
Similarly, I cannot diagnosis a swollen toe. I review what you’ve told me and recommend therapy. We are extensively trained in red flags that preclude self-treatment. (to Health – you do make a good point. However, we are aware that a purple toe could be many things – gangerene, warfarin-induced, an extensive bruise among others. We take a history and make a recommendation – which could very well be “See a physician – I will not recommend anything over the counter.”) If I am certain that the disease state is something that can be treated by an over the counter medication, I will make a recommendation; if not, I will refer you to your physician – even if it means I lose a sale.
Pill-dispenser? I must say this is an offensive misconception. I refer you to the American College of Emergency Medicine, the American College of Cardiology and others who all have released policy statements to the effect of pharmacists have a unique base of knowledge and are an extremely valuable resource. The law permits us to vaccine and we are held in responsible for the clinical appropriateness for every prescription (ie. if an overdose leaves the pharmacy on my watch, I must be to justify why I felt it appropriate to dispense and how I mitigated the risk to the patient)
Mod-29: I have made recommendations to prescribers since I was student and have had them followed exactly. Sometimes prescribers do turn to us for medication selection. You are correct in that we do not diagnose. Also, we train extensively to give medical/lifestyle/pharmaceutical advice – we have semester-long classes on this kind of thing.
Which is what I thought I had said, correct? I believe they probably know better than some docs what would work, but they are still at the mercy of the prescriber.
CTLawyer – A. Why Corporate chooses to have a 24 hour store in the area has nothing to do with the profession. That is a corporate decision. B. That being said, it may be that American trained pharmacist are not willing to practice in CT because of the extremely loose narcotic laws in CT and knowledge of some very lawsuit-happy law firms not too far south in NYC. C. In order to get licensed in NY, you actually need to demonstrate that you know how to make capsules, liquids, creams and IVs. You would be hard pressed to find someone who will make tablets for you as that requires a good amount of physics and chemistry not traditionally taught in school.
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I’ll be happy to pass anything along to him. Just post.