Why don't pharmacist hold control of the prescription side of medicine?

[nabilesmail]

Just curious, my cousin , who is a pharamacist, brought up a point I found Interesting.

He said doctors are so busy that they often do not keep up with the latest medicines and are coerced by pharm reps too often. He thought a good solution would be to have doctors be in charge of diagnosis and pharmacist be in charge of prescription based off that diagnosis

Wouldn't this make more sense ? Doesnt a pharmacist have much more training in drug interactions, the drug market, half lives etc ?

Sorry a bit buzzed and curious

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[Socrates25]

Computers know more about medicines than pharmacists do. I have a better idea. Let the physicians diagnose and let the computer pick the medicine!

Problem solved!

 

[nabilesmail]

True that haha
Btw, the dude wasn't bashing on docs at all, rather he just felt bad about how much they have to work and how it's easy to Fall into pharm tech propaganda

 

[TennisBallAgainstDaWall]

Sure, pharmacists know more about the drugs, the the doctors know more about the interactions with the body and how they will respond to a certain patient. Also, what do you mean by "have control over" like it's its a turf war? Essentially, the doctors and pharmacists play to their strengths and collaborate to provide the best type of care for their patients! If not, that's how it should be! Lawllll

 

[steven.a.smith]

After the patient does not respond to the medicine or has side effects let them call the pharmacist.

 

[lobo.solo]

I know pharmacist in the wards are well appreciated by doctors, they usually are a good source of knowledge when handling a complex pt who is on many medications. I don't know about having them handle ALL the prescriptions...

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

I would say, and I am really not trying to brag here, that 75% of the time when a pharmacist pages me about an issue on an order I wrote, I am right and they are wrong. Of the 25% of the time that they are right, more than half of those were due to a minor error in dosing or something like that rather than a gross error on my part.

So no, I would not be in favor of them handling all med orders and dosing.

That said, I am happy for their contributions and specialized knowledge in things like dosing of immunosuppressives for transplant patients, or our ICU pharmacist's knowledge of how to dose meds for CRRT.

But the idea that we are somehow horribly tainted by big pharma and pharmacists would do a better job is foolish. For the obvious reason that if pharmacists had prescribing power, big pharma would go after them as much as they do MDs.

 

[Microglia]

Pharmacists are terrific to minimizing medication errors and knowing the drug mechanisms/interactions better than physicians. However, often they don't know the pathophysiologic states of the people being treated, and even if they did that area isn't their expertise. As a result, currently the scripts are written by the docs and the pharmacists catch the errors.

 

[darkjedi]

There may also be nuances to a patients condition that makes a doctor prefer one drug over another that may not be readily evident to the pharmacist unless they go over the whole history of the patient. Medication is also usually just a single part of a treatment plan, and physicians like to make sure that everything fits together well.

 

[mik30102]

Pharmacists know "more" about specialty drugs then PCPs, and know "more" about common drugs then specialized physicians. Personally I see the role of a pharmacist as a medication specialist to consult with. Just like a PCP needs to consult with a cardiologist for a major heart problem, a pharmacist should be there for unusual drug issues. However do to our deficiency in understanding certain pathophysiologies, and in my experience physicians knowing more about the 15 or so drugs they use in practice then the pharmacist I definitely do not feel the professions should be separated in the way OP described.

 

[VisceralFlame]

But then you wouldn't have the added benefit of the prescription being "checked" by two different medical professionals

 

[joonage]

In the end, whoever prescribes, Big Pharma will follow. Nobody is exempt from the pressure.

 

[nabilesmail]

Thanks for the education guys !