Comments on: Bad Advice Serves as Good Reminder

By: Brian Herzog

Brian Herzog — Mon, 31 May 2010 13:55:01 +0000

@Liz: That is a good analogy. The next time you go in, ask the person giving you your prescriptions if they’re an actual pharmacist or a technician or a clerk or what. My guess is that, just like in libraries, it’s probably not the actual pharmacist doing that counter job (in libraries, usually it’s a library assistant or other paraprofessional person, depending on the size of the library). My brother is a pharmacist, so I’ll ask him about this.

I’m sure the pharmacist is trained in privacy, but, again like in libraries, that might not have been quiet so well reinforced with the other staff. But it’s our job to make sure everyone respects privacy.

By: Liz

Liz — Mon, 31 May 2010 03:14:11 +0000

I agree this is an unfortunate situation, but am hardly surprised by it when my pharmacist reads aloud the names of the prescriptions I’m picking up to make sure they’re right (at a level surely heard by the five people in line behind me).

Incidentally, I brought this up in a rather backhanded way – when another pharmacist SHOWED me the slips and asked if they were correct (rather than reading them aloud), I confirmed that they were and thanked her for cleverly checking the names without making them public information. We’ll see if praise and reinforcement get the job done without resorting to condemning the less private approach of reading them aloud.

Or maybe someone less timid than I will notice it too and bring it up.

By: Cari

Cari — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:47:44 +0000

Your comments and others were very good, so I don’t feel the need to add anything. I’m appalled at the situation, and Miss Manners needed to give a better response!

By: Erin

Erin — Tue, 25 May 2010 14:52:25 +0000

I 100% agree that the librarian in question should not have been reading titles aloud — very inappropriate in the context of privacy — but I have to add that it is not surprising that some people don’t recognize the inappropriateness of this behavior. To a great extent we are desensitized. When you rent videos at Blockbuster, the cashier often reads aloud the title of each movie and tells you when each is due. The self-checkout machines at many stores scream aloud the prices of every item you buy and your total (this always makes me uncomfortable, as though making me a target for parking lot robbery when I’ve bought a very expensive piece of equipment at Home Depot). Library staff really SHOULD know better, but we have to work harder to be aware of such privacy issues when so much in our society works to tell us that these kinds of invasion are “normal.”