Bored Today?

Did you ever wonder what some people must do with their days? When I am scheduled to work my plan is to go to work. When I am home, I make plans according to what needs done around the house or in my life. Based on some of the answers I receive from patients during conversations, I wonder ... that's it. I just openly wonder; mouth agape in awe at how life happens.

CP: You have a prescription to pick up.
Pt: What's it for?
CP: Why did you go to the doctor?
Pt: <shrugs shoulders>

---

CP: Let's play pretend again. I'll be the patient and you be the serious pharmacist.
CP's Partner: Okay. Definitely role playing.
CP: Let's do the "nothing better to do" sketch.
CPP: Got it. Ready?
CP: Ready. What are your plans today?
CPP: I'm going to Home Depot to find some plants for my garden.
CP: Sounds lovely.
CPP: What about you?
CP: Not sure. I think I'm going to the Walmart to people watch and pick up a few things, get an oil change, then I was thinking about swinging by my prescriber's office.
CPP: Why your prescriber's office?
CP: It's on the way and I want to see if anything is wrong with me. Maybe I could use a few tests, like a tuneup on my truck. Maybe I'm due for some refills or even some new prescriptions I haven't even taken before. You never know.
CPP: You can't just make an impromptu trip to your prescriber. It's not like going to the mall and window shopping. Or going to Home Depot to get inspiration for your yard.
CP: Why not? How do I know I don't need something if I don't have them rule out something to give me?
CPP: That makes my head hurt.
CP: How else do you explain so many people taking prescriptions for conditions they don't even know they don't have?
CPP: Stop it.
CP: You called to remind me to pick up my prescription. I asked what it was. You asked why I went to the prescriber. I don't know. I just randomly walked in off the street in between my oil change and getting a new iPhone and had the prescriber look at me. He uttered some medical mumbo jumbo, said he'd send prescriptions to a pharmacy, and here I am, hours later, expecting to retrieve them.
CPP: That's not how it works though.
CP: How not?
CPP: No one goes to the prescriber on a whim. Something is wrong, you go to the doctor. If it ain't broke, don't phix it.
CP: What about scheduled maintenance?
CPP: You're not a car. And that excuse is flimsier than what most patients would say in this scenario.
CP: I can't think of what they'd say. There seems to be no logical reason to why these people go their prescribers other than "we had nothing better to do".
CPP: This is why we lose every argument we have with them.
CP: They don't remember anything being prescribed for them. They don't remember having visited their prescriber in the last two weeks. They seem genuinely surprised when we call to tell them they have medications ready. Yet when we ask why they called or went to the office, all we get is "I don't know".
CPP: Must have been bored and had nothing better to do...