isyulli: doctors

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Jumat, 15 April 2011

Pharmcists Should Stay Out of Mental Health

Pharmacists should stay out of health treatment and do what they do best - glorified clerks. They have no training in curing disease. Their education is solely based on chemical analysis. They are scientists not physicians. Ask their advice and they tell you what is written on the packet.

Now the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia is saying pharmacists are qualified to treat people with mental illness. They may "give" drugs to such patients but they do not prescribe them. Heaven help us if they get involved will-nilly in advising those with mental disorders. Having someone continually talking in your ear about how to take your prescription medicine it not going to help one recover.

Doctors need direct contact with a patient to give the greatest assistance. Having a pharmacist in the middle is only going to mess things up. A mental patient is already stressed. Saying pharmacists will reduce medication errors is implying that they have qualifications to oversee physicians. Obviously, they do not have such expertise.

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Health

Jumat, 04 Februari 2011

Patients Do Not Take Medications Correctly

With probably one of the best prescription medicine schemes in the world which is heavily subsidized it is surprising that many people do not take their medications when they should. A third of patients just forget to take them.

An odd finding is that 67 per cent do not usually miss a dose but 71 per cent take less than the prescribed amount.

New schemes where pharmacists give advice will probably not help because listening now does not affect behavior later. Hospital admissions due to taking more and less than the prescribed medication amount will continue. With the pressures of daily life people seem to have more important concerns than their health.

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Senin, 08 November 2010

Pharmacists Want the Same Rights as Nurses and Midwives

I have been down this path before, but I shall visit it again because of changing circumstances - or should I say because some people perceive that things have changed. Nurses, particularly those in the outback where there is no general practitioner have been given prescribing rights by the Federal Government.

This is a great move forward. Doctors cannot be drawn to the bush no matter haw much they are paid. These nurses save lives. Indeed, they even do serious operations as they are the only ones who can help in an emergency. They should be paid just as much as doctors. They are providing medical services almost equivalent to General Practitioners living in rural communities and helping in any way they can.

What is irksome is that some other "professionals" are getting on the band wagon and demanding rights they surely do not deserve. Pharmacists are condemning midwives and want to take away their authority to prescribe in order to gain the right for pharmacists to prescribe "willy nilly" as defacto doctors. Pharmacists are no more than glorified clerks. Anyone can distribute medications particularly as 99 per cent of drugs are prepackaged in factories. What advice do you get from a chemist - nothing more nor less than what is written on the packet. They often do take liberties and give patients "near enough" medications when they run out of a particular line so as not to lose profit. They do have a vested interest in convincing patients to pay for more expensive medications.

As I have said before, pharmacists learn chemistry in great depth. They do not need such intensive training in one discipline to provide medicines. When has a pharmacist been sued for giving the wrong medicine? They are not held to account and mistakes do occur, but doctors are held responsible. It is like expecting jet pilots to have physics degrees. Pharmacists are over-qualified and this should not be rewarded. If they are to deal with people directly in the prescribing process they should have relevant communication courses in their training program.

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Rabu, 03 November 2010

Reducing Obesity Should Not Mean an Attack on the Elderly

Doctors call for a new attack on obesity. They are calling for more lap band surgery. Of course that will put more money in their pockets. New funding in maternal health is an objective. How can this impact on obesity? Getting new mothers to eat better does not really affect the diet of children. Funding for more beds is another "wishy-washy" idea which has no direct link to reducing obesity.

Banning take away food would mean that hospital cafes would not be able to sell fried chips. Can you imagine only sandwiches on offer? The eateries would not be in business for long. How is this going to be policed? Are they going to check on people all around the building at lunchtime to check on what they are eating? For example, what if a nurse brings a hamburger to work and reheats it in a microwave?

Look around and see what is the "norm" in society. half of women and there quarters if men are overweight. A government that bans take away food faces losing office at the next election. Treating obesity in other ways is also doomed to failure: dietitians are deemed to be in the category of psychologists (get a real job). Even offering free lap band surgery does not mean success. The majority would not choose to have such a dangerous operation.

Freeing up hospital beds for obese people by sending the elderly home makes one wonder if doctors putting forward such ridiculous ideas actually live in a dog kennel. They are surely not in the real world. There is a shortage of aged care places because there is not enough profit in the industry to draw investment. Unless government, thus taxpayers, pay more the aged and infirm will have to stay in hospitals.

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Senin, 06 September 2010

Calls for Change in Pain Relief May Not Be Possible

When you go into hospital for an operation you either get a "feel good" pain clinician who believes that no one should be in pain when medications are available, or you get an "ethical" physician who gives pain relief when he/she deems it to be "right". The problem is moral judgement differs from person to person.

Another issue is - Can pain be a disease in itself? Some calculate the failure to treat pain in working days lost. The problem is, taking analgesics will reduce some pain from the flu, for example, but you are still too sick to work. Furthermore, taking high levels of analgesics can make for a euphoric state where one does not want to work. Looking at it in terms of days lost is questionable.

Specialists are also calling for pain relieving medications to be shipped in large amounts to poorer countries where medical treatment is not widely available. Considering the drug problem in virtually all countries this may not be a good thing to do. In Africa UN staff have to give some provisions to rebels in order to operate in particular regions. Would these controlling parties want analgesics? Common sense would indicate that they would.

Physicians who specialise in pain relief may be drawn to the profession because they have strong ethics in this area, but they need to look at the big picture. Some illnesses are just so bad that even strong doses of pain relievers have little effect. To fully remove the pain a high dose causing death would be needed. Long term use of such medications leads to resistance. I other words, pain is no longer reduced, and certainly for drug addicts there are no more highs. Distribution of analgesics need to be dealt with on a national basis. Change in this areas may seem necessary - it may not be possible.

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Kamis, 18 Februari 2010

Pharmacists Are Trying to Get the Right to Prescribe Medications

The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia is pushing for chemists to have the right to prescribe medications. There is no way this will happen, however. The pharmaceutical body which represents 75 percent of Australian pharmacists claims chemists know more than doctors about new drugs. Considering doctors purchase all the latest journals and publications on medicine this statement is untrue.

Considering chemists were given the right to provide sick notes for employees to give to their employers and they didn't give the notes when asked, gaining presciption writing privileges would not be acted upon - unless of course there is big money in it.

The Pharmaceutical Society is asking the Government to fund a training program so chemists can advise consumers on asthma, diabetes and tobacco. This would be a waste. When you ask for advice about the simplest of things they seem to give very simplistic answers. Comments they give when they sell items is certainly not academic in nature.

It is ridiculous for chemists to make a decision on extending heart medication to patients, for example. If someone has a heart attack in the street you don't call a chemist. General Practitioners will "fight like crazy" to protect the right to prescribe. In the hands of a pharmacist it would surely be a licence to print money. And what about addictive medications? People will go pharmacy shopping to get these drugs.

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