What were they thinking? (This is why it takes "forever" to fill your prescription)

The last few days I was away on a small trip so I was unable to post anything. As soon as I got back to the pharmacy, my boss informed me that she had a "dumb prescription" to contribute to my blog. My boss is hilarious. I then received a prescription also which was dosed incorrectly, so I will post that too. As pharmacists, we know what the dosing SHOULD be which is how we catch these problems, but we do not have the authority to correct the prescriptions. This leads us to have to contact the doctors to verify and clarify, and therefore waste everybody's time (and sometimes get yelled at by patients).

RX #1:

Apparently a seasoned doctor wrote this, and not just a new one who hasn't figured out the art of prescription-writing. So in this image, the doctor wrote: cloxacillin 500mg every 6 to 8 hours for 5 days. This is an antibiotic. How do you ask the patient to take it every 6 to 8 hours? Which one is it? Every 6 hours or every 8 hours? What would the quantity be then if it's 5 days? Is it 20 capsules or 15 capsules? Haha. SO DUMB! Wasting the pharmacy's time to clarify with the hospital. 

RX #2:

The above prescription is for Biaxin 500mg 2 tablets once daily for 7 days.

So anyway, there are two kinds of Biaxin: Biaxin regular-release tablets are dosed twice daily in 250mg and 500mg strengths, and Biaxin XL 500mg extended release tablets are dosed once daily. 

In the above prescription, because no "XL" was written, it indicates the usage of regular-release tablets. If the patient takes the two tablets together, they are getting a huge dose right away which only lasts for about 12 hours, and then once the medication starts to excrete out of the body, they will have a large number of hours where there is no medication in their system and bacteria starts developing resistance. HM. To correct this rx, either, the doctor could write XL behind the Biaxin, or change the directions to BID (twice daily). 

The annoying part is that it's after office hours, and the patient is sick. I cannot NOT dispense this medication, but to change it would be against the law. It's so annoying that even though I know the correct rx, I still need to clarify with the doctor tomorrow. THIS is why it takes "FOREVER" to fill your prescription. (For those curious people, I just gave the patient regular 500mg tablets and told her to disregard directions on the label and take it twice daily.)