The "sick or impaired professional" is defined in terms of incapacity due to a psychiatric disorder, including alcoholism or drug dependence, which jeopardizes both the professional's accountability to the public and the assurance of providing competent health care to the patient. The term "sick or impaired professional" pertains to the inability to practice the profession with reasonable skill and safety based upon a number of enumerated illnesses as opposed to proving injury to a patient. Health professionals interviewed in Virginia indicated that drug diversion or leakage may be attributed to the following: *The Board of Veterinary Medicine, being formed later than the other health professional boards, was included within the Department of Professional and occupational Registration. **In addition to the 14 maintained by the State Board of Pharmacy, the Bureau of Narcotics Control maintains approximately 20 investigators. The two agencies appear to work synergistically. Of particular interest is the fact that pharmacists viewed the first two areas with concern and labeled them as serious problems. Their daily direct handling of controlled substances and increased proximity to the problem could be the reason for this finding. • Pharmacy Theft As Table 12 shows, concerning theft of drugs from pharmacies, the majority (59 percent or 129) of respondents who answered at least one of these questions felt that such theft was either a moderate or serious problem. Not surprisingly, a relatively large number of respondents from the pharmacy profession considered drug theft to be either a serious problem, (66 percent or 41), or a moderate problem, (23 percent or 14). Forged Prescription Orders Most pharmacists, 79 percent (49), considered forged prescription orders to be a moderate or serious problem. The largest number of professionals in nursing consider it a minor problem, and over half (64 percent or 28) of the veterinarians considered it no problem at all. Multiple Prescription Problem The problem of patients obtaining the same prescription order from more than one practitioner and reselling these controlled substances is not felt to be as serious by 16 percent (34) of the respondents as those of drug theft and forged prescription orders. A substantial number of the members of the medical profession (49 percent or 30) and 50 percent (31) of the pharmacy profession felt it was a moderate problem. Veterinarians were the only group where a majority (52 percent or 23) did not feel this was a problem. (See Table 14.) |