I figured that working in the pharmacy in a hospital, I didn't have to really deal with the day to day care of a patient or the consequences of that day to day care. Sure, sometimes I would get a call that required me to bring up some insulin stat - or else the patient will fall deeper into the health hole - so to say, I guess. Sometimes, life and death is just a short vial away.

But it never really was me who was saving people. It was the doctors and nurses and everyone who was physically touching the patient. I was just the guy who supplied the tools, the medicine.

But today, I got a call for some Tylenol , liquid. So I get that to them, nothing really hard. But later, I found out that there was a failure in communication and the reality was that a baby had needed that Tylenol. If no one (if the pharmacist) had not seen this, the baby would have died because Tylenol was too strong for that baby. It wasn't really my fault since I did the best with the information that I had at the time. But when the pharmacist said,

"You could have killed that baby."

It was paralyzing.

That's why there's always checks and balances. And we can't save 100% of the patients but we can try to, at least.