Yesterday when I was at work a woman came into the store to pick up her 16 year old daughter’s anti-biotic prescription. She had her husband with her. I was processing her payment and the pharmacist came over to the cash register to advise the mother that the anti-biotic would interfere with the effectiveness of one of the daughter’s other medications. The pharmacist was trying to be discreet – she was talking about a birth control medicine and didn’t want to come right out and call it birth control medicine. So she was calling it by the medical name (which I won’t use here.) I guess she was trying to prevent the father from learning about it (in case he didn’t already know!)
The reaction of the mother was priceless. She was clueless at first and the pharmacist had to repeat herself a couple of times before she caught on. Then her eyes got really wide and she gasped. “Oh – that is a good thing to know, thank you for telling me!” So all is well – unless the mother didn’t know that the daughter was on birth control until that point! It sure makes me nervous, situations like that. We have to protect the customer’s privacy as best we can, but this WAS a minor. Sticky wicket, eh?