Attorneys have duties to clients, in the nature of a fiduciary duty. Professionals other than doctors have duties to their clients/customers in varying levels.  Pharmacists, who are professionals owe an independent duty to persons for whom they fill a prescription…don’t they?  Well…not really, even though the profession of pharmacology is traced back to ancient Egypt and Babylonia where “a class of prepares of medicines existed separate from those who prescribed and administered drugs.”

Abrams v Bute 2016 NY Slip Op 01627 [138 AD3d 179]  March 9, 2016  Miller, J.  Appellate Division, Second Department tells us that they have roughly the same level of obligation to a customer as an intern has to a patient.  If they follow the supervising doctors’ instructions, and those instructions are not wildly off the mark, they will not be liable.

“This appeal and cross appeal require consideration of the duty owed by a pharmacist in filling a prescription issued by a{**138 AD3d at 181} physician. In view of our limited precedent on this subject, we take this opportunity to clarify the nature of a pharmacist’s duty and the means by which the appropriate standard of care may be established in any particular case. We conclude that when a pharmacist has demonstrated that he or she did not undertake to exercise any independent professional judgment in filling and dispensing prescription medication, a pharmacist cannot be held liable for negligence in the absence of evidence that he or she failed to fill the prescription precisely as directed by the prescribing physician or that the prescription was so clearly contraindicated that ordinary prudence required the pharmacist to take additional measures before dispensing the medication. Applying this standard here, the defendants Jessica “Smith,” CVS Pharmacy, and CVS Albany, LLC, are entitled to summary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against them.”