Hi Optiboard,
Actually, I will digress quickly. As I find myself posting more and more on this forum I think I should take a minute to kind of introduce myself.
I am still very, very new to optics (Began training in November of 2009) with a Big W Vision Center (Big W = discount store, Vision Center = dispensing practice within discount store - still fairly new to Australia). I've been lucky to work with some very experienced (and patient) optoms and dispensers who have been all too willing to answer the copious amount of questions I've had for them. However, in the fast paced retail environment, I've found these forums to be an excellent supplement to what I'm learning, and a great place to bounce ideas around in. (And the TIPS ON DISPENSING thread blew my little mind, a LOT of seriously useful information guys, thanks!)
end irrelevant talking;
Today I had a patient walk in, after our optom had gone home,complaining of something lodged in his eye. He had been working in a remote location and had been suffering for ~6 days. I questioned him about the sort of work he'd been doing and some of the symptoms that have developed over the six days. I was getting worried when he mentioned that his eyes were sticking together in the mornings. His eyes were super inflamed and most probably infected, so I walked him out of our store and to a nearby practice with an optometrist.
I left him in their care, and later heard that he was taken to hospital for surgical removal of some metal that had become embedded in his eye.
I was left to reflect on this and my part in the whole ordeal, specifically what my ethical duty of care to this patient was. He wasn't a previous patient with the practice, nor any other Big W practices before, he'd just walked him hoping to have someone look at his eye. This all happened very quickly, but in retrospect I probably would have felt more comfortable quickly getting this blokes contact details just to follow up with him in a couple of days.
What do you all think a dispensers duty of care to a patient is in situations like these, as far as I'm concerned he became a patient as soon as he walked into the practice, but I dunno.
Has anyone else had similar experiences? Please throw in your two cents, I'd love to hear what you think
Thanks,
Retrorat
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