I work in a small hospital that is in the middle of nowhere - as a result, there is only 1 pharmacist in the area that is willing to oversee the functioning of the pharmacy. She has written the policies & procedures in such a way as to revert any responsibility for pharmacy related errors on to the nursing department & this is tolerated by the admin because she is the only one they can get to work for them. It is pretty much the norm for the nurses to be expected to put meds for pts. who are going out on pass into the labeled bottles so that neither she nor her techs have to be disturbed, & if a nurse is not comfortable doing so, the DON does it. I have 2 questions:
1) Is this practice not called dispensing meds, & isn't this out of nursing's scope of practice?
2) Where & how would one go about notifying the Board of Pharmacy of this and other unethical practices? Is there a website where one could obtain this information?
I am almost afraid to post this, as she is a very vengeful person & if she sees this post I will most likely lose my job,
but I refuse to tolerate this any more, as this woman needs to be stopped. Thank you all for any help/suggestions you can give me.
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