Why do we learn trade names and not brand names in Pharm?

[ForbiddenComma]

(begin rant)

Ask 90% of attending FPs or internists if you should give the patient esomeprazole for their GERD, you'll get as your response.

I know that med school is full of rote memorization of useless facts, but this is one part that is just mind-boggling. Doctors know brand names. Nurses know brand names. *Patients* know brand names. So, God forbid we actually learn brand names. God forbid that instead of gibberish like "esomeprazole" we learn something easier like NEXIUM.

Cephalosporins are damn near impossible to learn in the first place, and the worst part is a surgeon won't know what you're talking about when you ask for cefazolin during your surgery rotation. But he'd know what you meant if you had asked for ANCEF. ... can't let students know actually useful things in preperation for third year huh!

I can imagine pharm profs talking about this: "Can't let them there med students off easy, can we? Why back in our day they had to learn nothing but trade names and by gum, dangnabbit, that's how it's always gonna be! Whippersnapper med students and their fancy laptops these days, punk kids, I'm tellin ya..."

I know this doesn't apply to all drugs... amiodarone is amiodarone no matter who you ask. And I know we can always dig out our PDAs to look it up on epocrates but then again, old grumpy attendings hate it when we look stuff up on our PDAs.

This is ridiculous.

And everything ends in either -mine or -zole! I mean just about DAMN NEAR every trade name! What kind of twisted sadist comes up with the names anyway??

I mean come on. Would the world actually end if instead of gobbledegook like "fexofenadine", the test question asked about ALLEGRA?

(end rant)

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[ForbiddenComma]

Actually, maybe the man in my avatar is the one behind drug trade names. "Making med students learn trade names... would that be... evil?"

 

[Law2Doc]

(begin rant)

Ask 90% of attending FPs or internists if you should give the patient esomeprazole for their GERD, you'll get as your response.

I know that med school is full of rote memorization of useless facts, but this is one part that is just mind-boggling. Doctors know brand names. Nurses know brand names. *Patients* know brand names. So, God forbid we actually learn brand names. God forbid that instead of gibberish like "esomeprazole" we learn something easier like NEXIUM.

Cephalosporins are damn near impossible to learn in the first place, and the worst part is a surgeon won't know what you're talking about when you ask for cefazolin during your surgery rotation. But he'd know what you meant if you had asked for ANCEF. ... can't let students know actually useful things in preperation for third year huh!

I can imagine pharm profs talking about this: "Can't let them there med students off easy, can we? Why back in our day they had to learn nothing but trade names and by gum, dangnabbit, that's how it's always gonna be! Whippersnapper med students and their fancy laptops these days, punk kids, I'm tellin ya..."

I know this doesn't apply to all drugs... amiodarone is amiodarone no matter who you ask. And I know we can always dig out our PDAs to look it up on epocrates but then again, old grumpy attendings hate it when we look stuff up on our PDAs.

This is ridiculous.

And everything ends in either -mine or -zole! I mean just about DAMN NEAR every trade name! What kind of twisted sadist comes up with the names anyway??

I mean come on. Would the world actually end if instead of gobbledegook like "fexofenadine", the test question asked about ALLEGRA?

(end rant)

I think the problem with brand names is that as soon as the patents expire a few years down the road, there will be a bunch of generics on the market that will be the same drug but cost a fraction of the cost to the patient. If you learn just the brand names, you will still be prescribing the most expensive products to the patients.

 

[JonnyG]

The reason being that after their patent expires the trade name is irrelevant. Also, there are different trade names for the same drug depending on location, the pharmaceutical licensing arrangement and even its indication.

 

[ForbiddenComma]

Oh come on, don't spoil my rant with "reasons" or "logic" please

And the fact remains that on clinicals, everybody will refer to it as "Nexium" or "Ancef" even after the patent expires -- it's a shame we aren't taught those names.

You can also write for brand names and the pharmacy can still dispense generics.

 

[Bitsy3221]

You'll always have to learn the generic name for the above reasons, among others (a lot of generics come in multiple brand names, all sold in the US so you'd have to know them all). You could have gone to my school where you were often taught both, and then you or one of your classmates would be on here, ranting that they have to waste their time learning TWICE the number of names, how come we can't just learn the generic and look the trade names up later, and how med school loves to waste time.

 

[nala]

Oh come on, don't spoil my rant with "reasons" or "logic" please

And the fact remains that on clinicals, everybody will refer to it as "Nexium" or "Ancef" even after the patent expires -- it's a shame we aren't taught those names.

You can also write for brand names and the pharmacy can still dispense generics.

Actually, most of my attendings and residents refer to drugs by their generic names. On outpatient rotations (like family medicine or outpatient ambulatory medicine) they use brand names but otherwise most people I've worked with use generics. The similar endings of generics (like for ACE inhibitors) also make it a lot easier during exams - if you know the patient needs and ACEI, just look for the "pril" ending instead of having to sort through all the brand names which really are not that similar within a given class.

 

[Law2Doc]

Oh come on, don't spoil my rant with "reasons" or "logic" please

And the fact remains that on clinicals, everybody will refer to it as "Nexium" or "Ancef" even after the patent expires -- it's a shame we aren't taught those names.

You can also write for brand names and the pharmacy can still dispense generics.

Also depending on what hospital you end up working in, some will use nexium while others may use protonix etc. So you'd have to know multiple brand names as every place you work may stock different stuff. Just bite the bullet and learn the underlying drug names.

 

[Thievery Corp.]

Ready for the most useful answer? (IMHO) Only generic names are on any of the USMLE exams.

 

[pillowhead]

Brand names can also sound very similar and get confusing--Celexa and Celebrex for example. Besdies, the fact that all cephalosporins and all ace inhibitors have similar names allows you to know that the drugs are of similar classes without having to look up what some meaningless combination of letters that tested well in marketing groups means.

 

[werd]

agree with the above; i think it's sort of bad form for doctors to only know the brand names... i've had some attendings that only allow you to use generic names on rounds or in notes, and scold you if you say "augmentin" instead of amox/clauv, for example. i plan on doing the same when i'm an attending .

 

[Critical Mass]

agree with the above; i think it's sort of bad form for doctors to only know the brand names... i've had some attendings that only allow you to use generic names on rounds or in notes, and scold you if you say "augmentin" instead of amox/clauv, for example. i plan on doing the same when i'm an attending .

Ditto on Bactrim. I'm not saying the whole name, maybe trimethoprim sulfa, but not the rest of it.

 

[SeventhSon]

easy answer: the pharm companies are evil, although the drugs themselves are not. Referring to the the brand name side steps the issue of being a salesman for the drug companies

 

[Critical Mass]

I'd like to know how much they spend on researching what they should call their new drug.

I have always known the generic names for antibiotics, but some of the brand names crack me up. I would have never guessed Avelox was in the same family as Levaquin for instance. Avelox sounds like a bedtime story that King Arthur read to his kids (somebody's been eating my antibiotic-laced porridge...)

 

[JLT91W]

Ditto on Bactrim. I'm not saying the whole name, maybe trimethoprim sulfa, but not the rest of it.

Or maybe just TMP/SMX - much easier

 

[JLT91W]

My best guess....from working in pharmacy for 6 years now, is.....there can be many different "brand" names for one drug. Like...Bupropion. Brand names on that drug are: Wellbutrin, Zyban, Budeprion, and Buproban. Why learn all of that when you can just write the generic name. It will most likely be dispensed in generic form anyways.

 

[Critical Mass]

Great avatar JLT, it reminds me of this clip:

http://thatvideosite.com/view/2781.html

(note that there is a much more x-rated pic on the web with the same caption)

Alternatives for sildenafil are discussed here:

http://listserv.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0110a&L=snurse-l&D=0&T=0&P=1324

I'm personally a fan of mycoxafailin.

 

[TMP-SMX]

Or maybe just TMP/SMX - much easier

Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole. I love saying that. Hence the name.

<------

 

[jdh71]

Interesting. Both names are used interchangable where I go to school. Rotations at a VA help, since all of their drugs are in the generic form. At the end of the day, you need to know both, and you'll be better for it

 

[Critical Mass]

Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole. I love saying that. Hence the name.

Reading that gives me a headache. It doesn't even fit on my computer screen at work.

BTW Flagyl is also just Flagyl. There is no generic name for it in my brain.

 

[Bertelman]

Great avatar JLT, it reminds me of this clip:

http://thatvideosite.com/view/2781.html

Wasn't there a user here not too long ago with that clip as the avatar???

Family Guy is some of the best comedy of the last decade. Seth MacFarland is friggin' brilliant. As an aside, he was actually booked to get on the Boston flight that was hijacked on 9/11. He changed his mind that morning.

 

[MSHell]

BTW Flagyl is also just Flagyl. There is no generic name for it in my brain.

So true!

In micro:

Prof: "What are the uses of metronidazole?"

Us: [blank staring]

Prof: "I know you know what it is, so, what is it used for?"

Us: [more blank staring]

Prof: "It's Flagyl."

Us: "You could have just told us..."

 

[nguyenkd]

I'm a 3rd year pharmacy student and I felt the same way the OP did during my first year. I found it incredibly annoying that I had to learn generic names for brand name meds that weren't available generically. One time in class, my professor asked me to name an ARB and I said Diovan. Of course she wanted the generic name and all I could say was that it ended in -sartan.

All of my professors refer to meds by their generic names and I actually prefer it that way now.

 

[merlin17]

At many of the hospitals I rotate through, you are required to use generics for ordering purposes to eliminate confusion. I kind of like that system.

 

[ForbiddenComma]

A lot of valid points, but I still am flabbergasted that brand names are not included in pharm *at all*.

It seems that it would benefit future doctors to learn the brand names at the same time as we learn the trade names when applicable. Attendings, nurses and patients usually go by brand names after all. "Loratadine" would be a lot easier to memorize, and recall on the clinics, if we learned it was Claritin in class. I know we can google it up on our own, but still...

 

[Ashers]

A lot of valid points, but I still am flabbergasted that brand names are not included in pharm *at all*.

It seems that it would benefit future doctors to learn the brand names at the same time as we learn the trade names when applicable. Attendings, nurses and patients usually go by brand names after all. "Loratadine" would be a lot easier to memorize, and recall on the clinics, if we learned it was Claritin in class. I know we can google it up on our own, but still...

A lot of our profs will tell us the trade names in parentheses with the generic, and sometimes the commercials with which the drugs are associated (Eszopiclone/green butterfly/Lunesta, Ramelteon/Abe Lincoln and the Gopher/Rozarem). I like it when they do those associations. But we'll still get points off if we put Prozac instead of fluoxetine.

 

[vtucci]

It still is a problem in the community if we only know the generics and not the brand names. Most professors at my school gave us both. However, in the fabulous med school reality of intellectual bullemia, most students will only learn what they will be tested on in the immediate future.

Our patients have no conception of what the generic name for their drugs are. I have seen many docs look up the brand names to drugs esp if they are not some of the more common items (i.e., Zocor etc). Unfortunately, the patients are surprised when they do this and think we should know the drugs they are taking (of course, they are right) but explaining we were taught this drug as a twelve-syllable name instead of the much easier to pronounce brand name is a tough sell.

 

[Law2Doc]

Our patients have no conception of what the generic name for their drugs are. I have seen many docs look up the brand names to drugs esp if they are not some of the more common items (i.e., Zocor etc). Unfortunately, the patients are surprised when they do this and think we should know the drugs they are taking (of course, they are right) but explaining we were taught this drug as a twelve-syllable name instead of the much easier to pronounce brand name is a tough sell.

Well, as you know from your prior career, it's better to be seen looking up the right answer then to give the wrong one.

 

[vtucci]

Actually as you know Law2Doc, it is better to not have to look up something in front of a patient. I am not one for adding any more to our enormous load but requiring the 100 most common drugs brand names might not be a bad idea.

 

[Droopy Snoopy]

Ready for the most useful answer? (IMHO) Only generic names are on any of the USMLE exams.

Is it true that the 3rd year Psych board uses brands as well as generics? This is just a rumor I heard the other day.