There
were days when teachers used to scold us for bad handwriting at school citing
it as doctor’s handwriting. I was unable to decipher the exact meaning of it at
that time. Days gone, I am getting the exact taste of that sarcasm.
When
I started my professional career as a Hospital Pharmacist the first thing I had
to do was to understand the code language [ doctor’s way of writing
medications] in the prescription. Now after more than two years of work at
hospital pharmacy the cycle is repeating and for how long I am unsure. 
During
day to day encounter with such prescriptions, I have seen really bad to very
good written prescriptions. Errors are bound to happen and I have experienced
it. Sometimes wrong medicine was prescribed which I corrected by consulting the
doctor. I have received some prescriptions with wrong dosing issues [
ciprofloxacin 200mg two times a day, ciprofloxacin 500mg three times a day,
azithromycin 500mg three times a day and so on] but corrected them through
doctor consultation. I sent back those prescriptions containing narcotics but
without name of the prescriber and the date. Some prescriptions were so bad
that I got confused whether the drug should be taken for certain days, week or
months. So yup, we can minimize the errors and we are only the right person to
do so.
I
wonder why doctors don’t think it important to write the prescriptions
correctly and neatly. Patients waste their entire day to meet the physicians. Doctor
fill up the prescription but what is its use if it cannot be understood by the
pharmacist who dispense the medicines to the patients. A mere change in letter can
change the medicines given to the patients. Then what if wrong medicines are
dispensed. Aren’t we playing with lives of people. Are doctors so much busy
that they cannot even write it clearly what patient need to take in order to
cure the diseases.
Grow
up, I still remember a quote by Dr. Vikash during the Pharmacovigilance
training at Yak and Yeti hotel “gone are the days where doctors with bad
handwriting were thought to be good doctors. Reality is if a doctor cannot
write a medicine properly then he/she cannot be considered as good one. They are
the bad ones’. I agree with this statement.
In the
present context most of the overdosing and medication errors are due to bad
prescription writing and wrong dispensing. The confusion with LASA medications
and guess work by the pharmacist is another reason. We have read the
characteristics of the good prescription. We are the one to dispense correctly
and we are responsible for anything wrong that happen due to medications. So we
must be careful while reading the prescriptions.
Why
not we send the confusing and badly written prescriptions back to the doctors
or we can contact the doctor and clarify the issue. We cannot repeat mistake
just by guessing wrong. If you get the prescriptions with narcotics without
details of the prescriber and the patients, send back. It’s not your fault.
Now
time has come to be good at writing prescriptions. The medication errors that
we are getting today can only be resolved when doctors give some extra seconds
to write neat prescriptions. Doctors should at least consider writing the name
of drug, dose and the frequency of taking the medicines correctly. This is
directly linked with people’s lives. What about try E-prescriptions. This can
minimize errors by 80 % I guess. On the other side of the coin, we should
update ourselves on handling prescriptions. Training might help this out. Reading
leaflets and searching about the daily used medicines on internet will enrich you.
The
diagnosis and treatment that a doctor does is finally complete when the patient
gets correct medications and gets cured. Otherwise everything is of waste. So pharmacist
should play a role in controlling bad dispensing. Never guess the medicines. Say
no to bad prescriptions.
