Beg, Borrow, or Steal: A Search for Affordable Prescription Drugs

by Emily Forest
SDN Staff Writer

Seroquel, with its connotations of well-being and peace, sounds like the name of a bird or a midlevel car. It doesn’t sound like something that causes weight gain or blurred vision while treating psychosis, nor does it sound like something associated with financial strife. The pills, tiny, white and innocuous, don’t LOOK expensive. But at nearly $600 for a month’s supply, the cost easily exceeds rent for many people.

When I started the drug, I dutifully paid the $30 co-pay and let my insurance company handle the bulk of the cost. What I didn’t realize was that each month, behind this co-pay, the insurance company received a bill for $595.00, whittled down to a “negotiated rate” of $498. While I took for granted that my insurance company shouldered the burden of my monthly costs, both for Seroquel and several other psychotropic drugs, I didn’t realize that the benefit had an annual cap of $2,500. Read more »

Student Loan Crunch: Time for Action!

by Megan Hansell Henderson
SDN Contributor

On September 7, 2007, the House and Senate approved the Conference Report (100-317) for H.R. 2669, also known as the “College Cost Reduction and Access Act”. This Act was signed into law by the President of the United States on September 27, 2007 with an effective date of October 1, 2007.

Why should you care? The Act, while providing additional benefits to undergraduate students, eliminated the economic hardship deferment qualification known as “20/220”, used by many health profession students to delay loan repayment while in residency or fellowship. Read more »

MRSA: What Health Care Providers Should Know

by Alison Hayward, M.D.
SDN Staff Writer

In the battle of humans vs. bacteria, a new enemy has emerged as the most feared “superbug” of 2007. Forget West Nile and bird flu – Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) is suddenly all over the media. It is an overdue and well-deserved spot in the limelight.

MRSA rose to prominence last month when a CDC report published in JAMA estimated that nearly 19,000 people had died of MRSA infections in 2005. Compare that with AIDS, which killed about 17,000 in the same year, and it becomes readily apparent that most of the country is unaware of the degree of threat posed by MRSA. In fact, many people still do not know what MRSA is.

Here is a quick primer on MRSA to help answer any questions your patients, friends, and family may have.

Read more »

Volunteer Profile: Julianne Worst

by Juliet Farmer
SDN Staff Writer

Julianne H. Worst, SDN user name Julianne, is a 32-year-old first-year student pharmacist and pharmacy intern. She is currently a member of the class of 2011 at Auburn University’s Harrison School of Pharmacy. Worst, who spent her childhood in both Savannah, Georgia, and Montgomery, Alabama, did her undergrad work at Bevill State Community College in Alabama. She has been married for almost 15 years and has one seven-year-old son.

Choosing pharmacy as a specialty was almost a fluke for Worst. “I actually stumbled on the profession after my son, Ezekiel, was born prematurely back in April of 2000. At that time, I was working about 50 or 60 hours a week (in retail management) and while I enjoyed the work, I could no longer adhere to that type of schedule. Read more »

Twenty Questions: Nicholas Blanchard, PharmD, MEd

By Juliet Farmer
Staff Writer

Nicholas Blanchard, PharmD, MEd, is Assistant Dean for Student Affairs and Advocacy at Wegmans School of Pharmacy, St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York.

Dr. Blanchard has nearly 20 years of practice and academic experience in pharmacy. Prior to coming to Fisher in early 2006, he held the positions of Assistant Dean of Student Affairs at Wingate University School of Pharmacy, Associate Dean of Experiential Education at Texas Tech University School of Pharmacy, and Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice at Washington State University College of Pharmacy. Read more »

Health Care Hot Topic: Tablet Splitting

Pill Splitting Adapted by Sarah M. Lawrence
Used with permission

Tablet splitting has become a popular method for controlling prescription drug costs. Many insurance companies offer free tablet splitters or other incentives to convince patients to purchase higher strength tablets and take a half tablet per dose. With the practice on the rise, the concerned practitioner may wonder: is this safe and effective for patients? Does the financial benefit outweigh the potential for adverse therapeutic outcomes? Read more »

Administration Profile: Hieu Tran, PharmD

Hieu Tran, PharmDBy Anna Peck and Sarah M. Lawrence

Dr. Hieu Tran is the dean of the new Sullivan University College of Pharmacy in Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Tran has been involved in the organization of three new colleges of pharmacy, first as a faculty member, then a department chair and now as founding dean at Sullivan. SDN administrators Sarah M. Lawrence and Anna Peck had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Tran to discuss his career, the process of opening a new college of pharmacy and pharmacy school admissions.

SDN: What attracted you to the field of pharmacy initially?

HT: I knew several people who were practicing pharmacists and that sparked my interest. I was attracted to both the scientific and personal aspects of the profession. When I was a young pharmacy student I dreamed of opening my own corner pharmacy and providing personal care and service to patients. My career has gone in a different direction, but I still enjoy the interpersonal interaction I get from my work in pharmacy. Read more »

Pharmacy Debate: Refusal to Fill

Refusal to FillPharmacists’ refusal to fill legally written prescriptions has recently become a topic of debate among healthcare providers, employers, lawmakers, and the general public.

The issue is often framed as a question of patient rights vs. pharmacist rights, due to the public controversy over the emergency contraceptive “Plan B” which has unfolded over the past decade. However, the issue carries broader implications, extending to drugs intended for abortion or immediate post-abortion care, lethal injection for use in the potentially abused medications such as narcotics.

The stakes are so high for interested parties that states across the country have been pressured to take a position for or against pharmacists’ refusal to fill through legislation and policy changes. As of November 2006, five states (AR, CA, GA, MS, SD) have chosen to codify the right of a pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription on moral grounds, while four (IL, MA, NC, PA) have passed legislation requiring pharmacists to fill or transfer certain prescriptions.1 Read more »

Horrible Handwriting: Horrible Mistakes

Horrible MistakesThe longstanding joke is that doctors have horrible handwriting. But it’s no laughing matter.

While handwriting doesn’t play a major role in most peoples’ careers, in the medical field, it can mean the difference between life and death. Whether it’s a mix-up between Lamisil and Lamictal, Cerebyx and Celebrex, Zyrtec and Zantac, or Sarafem and Serophene, confusion over drugs with similar spellings and similar sounds accounted for 15 percent of all errors reported to the United States Pharmacopeia Medication Errors Reporting Program from 1996 to 2001. In fact, it’s such a problem that the Food and Drug Administration even appointed a panel of experts to review proprietary drug names—just to try to alleviate such confusion in the future.

But beyond drug name mix-ups, poor penmanship also accounts for many other errors. Read more »

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