Sometimes, less is more and the fewer meds a person can take and still remain healthy, the better off he/she will be.
Family doctors make house calls here (otherwise they wouldn't be family doctors :wink: ).
Being grown as a son of an hopsital doctor (pneumologist & interior), I got some ideas about medecine at a quite early age.
Well, and when I studied social work, 'social medecine' was a compulsary subject.
Many rural area physicians in the US still make house calls.
Miller wrote:This sounds like good advice, except for the fact that very few non-pharmacists can read a hand-written Rx.
A hand-written Rx is not that hard to read and that's not my point which is to check what you've received. I'm not questioning the doctor, if I have a prescription in hand, I've already done that... I'm checking the pharmacy.
My doctor always tells me what she's prescribing and why, as well as how I should take it. If yours doesn't, then I'm surprised. I want to make sure that what I receive from the pharmacist matches her orders. If the bottle says take three twice a day, and she said take one, three times a day... I'd question that. This is an exact technology... have you ever watched a pharmacist count pills? They should never be put off by your questioning their work. They want you to know it is absolutely correct. A pharmacy that is sloppy doesn't last very long.
It is also easy to check that the medication appears to be what was ordered. All medications have certain identifying physical characteristics -- color, size, shape and markings. There are online and hard-copy dictionaries for this. As one gets older, we get used to taking a certain type of med, whether it is a pink and white capsule or an orange pill. When people switch to a generic, they should (IMO) check to be sure that they are, in fact, getting what their doctor ordered. It takes all of five minutes online... or you can just say to the pharmacist (likely a Phamacy Tech or Assistant) -- this pill looks different, are you sure this is the right medication?
Quote:have you ever watched a pharmacist count pills
The only people in today's pharmacy who "count pills" are the interns and the techs since virtually no registered pharmacist (PharmD) goes through college for 6 years to end up counting pills!
The role of today's pharmacist is to monitor drug interactions and advise physicians about various medication modalities with which patients may be treated.
High vol pharmacies ( 1000 Rx/day ) frequently use a machine to dispense and count meds as these machines are fast, accurate and in the long haul cost effective.
About counting pills: I could never understand why they never used machines to count the pills at drug stores. Somebody with some imagination should invent one that'll take all size and shapes of pills to count and become wealthy - with a backup weight machine to ensure accuracy!
cicerone imposter wrote:...I could never understand why they never used machines to count the pills at drug stores.
Most high vol pharmacies DO use machines to dispense tablets.
Miller wrote:
The only people in today's pharmacy who "count pills" are the interns and the techs since virtually no registered pharmacist (PharmD) goes through college for 6 years to end up counting pills!
The role of today's pharmacist is to monitor drug interactions and advise physicians about various medication modalities with which patients may be treated.
Today's pharmacist's role is to monitor drug interactions and advise physicians? Possibly in a hospital situation <shrug> I wouldn't know. My doctor has never asked him for advice. She occasionally checks one of her references, usually a PDR.
The role of the independent pharmacist I deal with is to advise
me of possible drug interactions and make sure that
I know exactly what I'm getting and how it should be administered. I speak to him or one of his co-horts whenever a change in medication is made.
This pharmacist has that role, partly because it would be his head and business on the platter if a mistake were made on his end, partly because he wants my continued business. I've been going to him (and, yes, the several pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who work for him) for more than twenty-five years... and boy, does he have a beautiful, big building now. Service is always the best product to deliver.
Surely, Miller, you are not seriously attempting to disagree with the idea that it is important to be your own health advocate?
In Germany, in (chemist's shops) pharmacies, the (registered) pharmacist is today more an "health manager" than someone producing pills (which rarely here is done since 95% is sold packed) - she/he knows all and every concerning drugs and medicamentation.
Advice for doctors is given by pharmaceutical assistents from the various firms - their pharmacists usually don't travel around.
I heard pharmacists have made errors in filling the prescriptions because of the bad handwriting of the doctors. Good pharmacists would have phoned up the doctors to check if they have doubts.
I find also that pharmacists sometimes give you generic drugs instead of the specific drug name on the prescription. They say it is the same thing or that it is cheaper for you.
Well, generic drugs are lots cheaper, Cello, no doubt about it. (And, hello, how are you, welcome to a2k... hope you like it here. I like your screen name.)
Generics have the same active ingredient but not the same formulation and buffering agents which is why people may have trouble tolerating them. Either they're allergic to those inactive ingredients or the absorption rate for the active ingredient is different. I think we can often get used to a new formulation, but it is less alike than fresh milk vs canned milk, reconstituted.
About the bad handwriting... there's some truth (see Time magazine's article last month) and a lot of urban legend in that, plus the mystique of medicine and the Latin abbreviations used. Certainly a wise pharmacist who cannot read a prescription should be contacting the doctor's office. If he or she screws up the prescription, even if due to the MD's poor handwriting, then the pharmacist may be considered at fault and his/her insurance company may pay a hefty lawsuit.
Here's an interesting website/course in Pharmacy Law:
https://secure.jdeducation.com/JDCourseMaterial/Law-Patient%20Safety%20Focusweb.pdf
Is there a law that prescriptions must be handwritten? All that is done by computers here.
Quote:Tessxyz -- Since you're a newbie I'll try to be gentle with you... hello and all that, welcome to a2k, etc. ... but I disagree with you completely.
If you drive a car, you'd better know how it works. If you've gotten a new car, the first thing it says in the manual is read the entire manual and understand how to best maintain your car. If you have someone build your house, you'd better know if it's being built right, because in the end, who else is going to watch out for your interests? There are plenty of folks crying right now because they were cheated by fly-by-night contractors and there isn't much recourse in the courts even IF you can find someone to sue.
The data available in the 21 century is so huge that we need to specialize. Does not matter how clever the person is in the end of the day even whole life is not enough to become familiar with a small part of knowledge available to us. Would you want when ill to be look after the person who familiarized himself with 10 medical encyclopedias? I would not , further more when having problems with my heart I would prefer cardiologist and not urologist looking after my well being. No, I don't know how my car works neither the computer. I am good in my own specialized field and depend on other people to do their job right. If I was trying to be good in everything I would be good in nothing
Be gentle
I spent three years in the army medical corps, both as a field medic, and a medical records and reports specialist. I worked in civilian hospitals after i got out of the army for three years.
That was long enough for me to learn that i didn't know nearly enough to does myself, or advise others, and that for as arrogant and childish as they so often are, doctors are the best, the only reliable, sources of medical advice.
Nothing is more ludicrous, and often tragic, than the obsessive hypochondria of some many people, overwhelmingly women. I don't think people should be ignorant, but i also don't think they should decide they know better than trained physicians and pharmacists. If someone has any doubts, they should seek different expert advice. I frankly think Phoenix is making things up about the reality of the dangers she alleges in the first post, at least with regard to incorrectly filled prescriptions. I suspect she has heard one or two horror stories, and is extrapolating that to an outrageous extent.
There are serious problems with malpractice, because the medical profession will not reliably govern itself, and police its own ranks. Getting a second, or even a third, opinion when a doctor advises surgery, or any radical, long-lasting or expensive procedure is just good sense. Attempting to read one's own prescriptions, and relying upon online resources to make medical decisions, however, is likely to be as disastrous as visiting the quack lady down the street who tells all of her gullible friends how to dose themselves.
Fine--do all the online research you wish. But check it out with one or more medical professionals, and above all, take charge of your own health by questioning your physician, and finding a new physician if your current doctor won't talk to you, or doesn't make sense to you when he or she does. Don't try to doctor yourself, the results are likely to be tragic.
Walter -- Interesting question and the answer is probably that it varies from state to state and is likely changing. All my original prescriptions have been hand-written -- refills are handled differently. I was reading about this and apparently, because physicians themselves aren't liable for badly-written (but correct) prescriptions so the push (and the money) for the computer systems comes from pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies. In the same article it said 30% of the US Doctors prescribe almost all the meds, so it would only be a matter of computerizing them. (This makes sense, with so many hospital-based doctors and research fellows.) I don't know of any computerized prescriptions. You know, security is so tight on some meds, even over-the-counter ones, that there'd be hackers from all over trying to break the system and the liability issues must be complicated.
tessxyz wrote:
The data available in the 21 century is so huge that we need to specialize. Does not matter how clever ... I
Be gentle
My dear Tessyz... Surely you jest! You know lots more about the computer than you let on and also about your car.
I am not sure where you get the idea that I want to prescribe for myself. What I want to do is be a careful consumer. They way I do that is be being a specialist in myself and I'm taught by my eminently qualified physicians.
Setanta wrote:I spent three years in the army medical corps,...Don't try to doctor yourself, the results are likely to be tragic.
Tragically, my mother died twenty-four years ago from the ministrations of the army medical corps, who prescribed female hormones for her at a rate which would be considered criminal today.
We still have the bottle with the outrageous dosage spelled out.
Nice hack job there, Piffka. I was responding to the question of how much medical knowledge one has accrued in one's life--i wasn't providing a testimonial for the quality of care available from the Army Medical Corps.
You combined the very first sentence of my post with the very last--nice editing job there. My advice stands: Don't try to doctor yourself, the results are likely to be tragic.
Do me a favor, Piffka, don't respond to my posts unless you really feel you cannot resist. I despise people who indulge in hack jobs like that, using what i've written, to make tangential points.
