how often do doctor's ask for a recommended dose for an rx?

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Hey guys, I am a recent college grad thinking about going back to college to pursue pharmacy. I have been looking at various curriculums and while looking at pharamaceutical calculations, I noticed a number of questions where the focus was on doctors asking the pharmacist to recommend a dose or a certain regimen. How often does this occur in actual practice? Sorry if this is a strange question but this really peaked my curiosity. I am sure there will be more questions upcoming.

Thanks in advance guys!

 

[KARM12]

Depends on your practice. I dose the majority of the meds that are ordered by my service.

 

[xiphoid2010]

Hey guys, I am a recent college grad thinking about going back to college to pursue pharmacy. I have been looking at various curriculums and while looking at pharamaceutical calculations, I noticed a number of questions where the focus was on doctors asking the pharmacist to recommend a dose or a certain regimen. How often does this occur in actual practice? Sorry if this is a strange question but this really peaked my curiosity. I am sure there will be more questions upcoming.

Thanks in advance guys!

Like Karma said. It has alot to do with your relationship with the MDs in the hospital. Once they come to know that you can cut the mustard and are reliable, many will go with whatever you want.

 

[rph3664]

It depends on where you work. Most doctors prescribe pretty much the same 20 or so drugs, depending on their specialty, although once in a while, somebody will need an item with which they're not familiar and they will ask us about dosing. You would certainly encounter this much, much more in a hospital environment than you would in retail.

And get a job in a pharmacy before you make a leap this big, so you have some idea what you would be getting into. Be aware, too, that this is a field that is becoming oversaturated and job prospects aren't like they were just a few years ago. 😡

 

[PharmDstudent]

Hey guys, I am a recent college grad thinking about going back to college to pursue pharmacy. I have been looking at various curriculums and while looking at pharamaceutical calculations, I noticed a number of questions where the focus was on doctors asking the pharmacist to recommend a dose or a certain regimen. How often does this occur in actual practice? Sorry if this is a strange question but this really peaked my curiosity. I am sure there will be more questions upcoming.

Thanks in advance guys!

It doesn't happen very often in community pharmacy. The doctors who usually ask for dosing help have been out of practice for a while or are calling it in for a family member (a child).

 

[Sparda29]

When I was on my community rotation, I'd say that about 25% of physicians who called in scripts asked for an opinion about dosing or choice of drug for the patient. On my internal medicine rotation, it was closer to 75%. It was a teaching hospital. On rounds, the attending and the clinical pharmacist wouldn't give the residents any answers. He'd tell them to ask me, and if I didn't know, then him and clinical pharmacist would explain to all of us.

 

[xiphoid2010]

It doesn't happen very often in community pharmacy. The doctors who usually ask for dosing help have been out of practice for a while or are calling it in for a family member (a child).

OP, listen to pharmdstuent. If you want to frequent influence over MDs, you pretty much need to be Inpatient. Preferably a teaching hospitals with lots of fresh medical residents.

 

[PumpkinSmasher]

To the OP,

Sparda's 25% of physicians calling ask for advice on dosing or drug choice is the highest percentage I have ever heard of, this is either an exaggeration or a very rare circumstance.

It is rare that physicians call in their own scripts and it will get less and less now that everyone is pushing for electronic prescriptions.

The hospital setting will vary on your service and the relationship with the practitioners on the floors and the presence the pharmacy has established in the hospital.

If what interests you is making a direct impact on drug therapy and providing a drug info service to prescribers, retail pharmacy is not going to be for you.

 

[owlegrad]

Perhaps he meant when a doc calls in a script, 25% of the time they ask an opinion? That might actually be right. As you say, a doctor calling in a script is pretty rare.

 

[All4MyDaughter]

Yeah, 25%... no way. When I work community (small town independent, very good relationship with local prescribers) it's at most a few calls a day. We get more calls asking, "I want to prescribe __________________, for __________________... what will Medicaid pay for?" than actual dosing questions, although we get those too.

 

[Rouelle]

We have a doc whose peds prescriptions look something like: "Drug XYZ, liquid, for a 50 lb kid"

Does this count as asking dosing advice?

 

[Sparda29]

Perhaps he meant when a doc calls in a script, 25% of the time they ask an opinion? That might actually be right. As you say, a doctor calling in a script is pretty rare.

Yeah, it's when they call, which was pretty often. It was a NYC CVS that did like 600 scripts/day.

 

[Pharmavixen]

When I worked in retail pharmacy, the only time I was asked to make dose recommendations was in cases where the drug the physician prescribed wasn't covered by whatever drug plan, and I'd suggest something else that was.

 

[crazybob]

Recommended dose, almost never.

Max dose, sometimes.

 

[psychoandy]

As everyone has said it really depends on practice setting, rapport and relationship with prescriber, etc.

I work in an academic medical center with many many residents and get asked for dosage or formulary equivalent maybe once every other shift by pager. However if I'm covering 1 floor and rounding in an icu its usually more. Especially if there are interns on service, pts are in renal failure and need individualized dosing, or if its an area where you get a wide variety of sickness eg general medicine or the micu.