My turn to play devils advocate:
What if all medications had to go through the general practitioner. So if the patient sees their cardiologist, the cardiologist sends the diagnosis with the prescription to the primary care practitioner and they add it to the other medications the patient is on, and input all the drugs into the computer and check for interactions. If doesn't check out then they discuss the problem with the cardiologist to find another medication. They could just tack on an extra year to General Practice that focuses on medication therapy.
In a hospital this function can be performed by the hospitalist. Now there isn't as much need for the pharmacist in the dispensing function so pharmacist just have to check the medications to make sure it's the right one. They could even just train pharmacy technicians better and have them do that. (hell there is software to help with that too). It would save a lot of money for pharmacies as they wouldn't have to hire a pharmacist.
Now I'd like to see everyone pick this apart as objectively as possible. From the perspective of corporate in a pharmacy chain as well as physicians who would no longer have to deal with the pesky pharmacist, it would be one of their own discussing this stuff with them.
I'd like to think that pharmacist could defend against the claims I made. I don't believe them to be true, I just need someone to provide concrete counter-arguments that were acceptable to people who don't have any stake in the future of pharmacists. Like Walgreens corporate who are already actively trying to reduce the need for pharmacists.
you are missing the point, these aren't just opinions of pharmacists but opinions on governing bodies that say you have to have a pharmacy making interventions. You have laws that say that you have to have a medication checked and verfied by a pharmacist. There are court cases and legal documents that support this assertion. Pharmacy will not be minimized.
you would think that physicians would know this stuff. But they don't. They have been making decisions but as medicine gets more specialized, the more doctors slot themselves in knowing the drugs of their specialty. You are going to be hard pressed to find an oncologist who specializes in leukemias who knows how to effectively and efficiently treat rheumatoid arthritis. Yet these people come into my hospital and you cant just ignore those medications, you cannot ignore those problems.
. It's only a matter of time before some med student/physician comes in here all pissed off at what you just said. At least you were willing to acknowledge the challenge of diagnosing and treating all diseases instead of just one area of specialization though.
So should the A.
You know, from a pharmacy student, I expected better. IMO, this is just as bad as saying that the typical pharmacy student could not get into medical school, or the typical DO student could not get into MD school.
This would not work. Primary care physicians are already swamped as it is. Two of the reasons less people are choosing to become primary care physicians is overwork and undercompensation. Yet what you propose entails giving PCP's even more work. Who will pay for this medication management? Or do you expect them to provide this service for free?
You assume that replacing the job of a pharmacist entails training techs and having a computer check for interactions. So why do we even need pharmacists at this time, when computers exist which can be programmed, as do techs which can be trained for a fraction of the cost? I will not answer this, as I assume that you, as a pharmacy student, can think of at least one reason why the job you are being trained for is so important that it cannot be replaced by a computer and a tech with less training. However, you are proposing that pharmacists should be replaced with physicians (!), adding to their already long 7-10 year training, which would, if you think this through, reduce the number of physicians and increase the already high cost of healthcare. At a time when your country is vigorously debating healthcare reform, I doubt this idea would be welcome.In a hospital this function can be performed by the hospitalist. Now there isn't as much need for the pharmacist in the dispensing function so pharmacist just have to check the medications to make sure it's the right one. They could even just train pharmacy technicians better and have them do that. (hell there is software to help with that too). It would save a lot of money for pharmacies as they wouldn't have to hire a pharmacist.
Now I'd like to see everyone pick this apart as objectively as possible. From the perspective of corporate in a pharmacy chain as well as physicians who would no longer have to deal with the pesky pharmacist, it would be one of their own discussing this stuff with them.
As for pharmacy yeah retail is very ghetto, and you can belittle it all you want. It won't offend me b/c I have no interest in retail and will never do it.
I'm not saying that DOs only go to Primary Care. I said they need to increase DO schools. If I said MD schools would you have posted? It is true that there is a slant for DOs to go to primary care. I personally thought that was because it was what DO schools pushed for/trained their students for. Certainly DOs can try for other residencies and I'm sure DOs would make excellent Dermatologist as well. In any case PCP is not an insult. They are a very important part of the system.
Thanks for the information. I did say that they shouldn't increase residency for anything BUT primary care. The idea was that they were going to open up more Medical schools, thus increasing the load on residencies. This might lead some to try and make more residency positions available for everything, when we really need more PCPs. Get it? That little add-on was because I knew people might consider going in to other areas from DO schools but we wanted people to consider PCP more.
The Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) is a professional degree
which requires four years of professional study.
Our innovative curriculum is designed to fulfill our mission of
training primary care physiciansThe osteopathic medical profession has a
proud heritage of producing primary care practitioners.
In fact, the mission statements of the majority of
osteopathic medical schools state plainly that their
purpose is the production of primary care physicians.
Osteopathic medical tradition preaches
that a strong foundation in primary care makes one a better physician,
regardless of what specialty they may eventually practice.I'm not saying that DOs only go to Primary Care. I said they need to increase DO schools. If I said MD schools would you have posted? It is true that there is a slant for DOs to go to primary care. I personally thought that was because it was what DO schools pushed for/trained their students for. Certainly DOs can try for other residencies and I'm sure DOs would make excellent Dermatologist as well. In any case PCP is not an insult. They are a very important part of the system.
Thanks for the information. I did say that they shouldn't increase residency for anything BUT primary care. The idea was that they were going to open up more Medical schools, thus increasing the load on residencies. This might lead some to try and make more residency positions available for everything, when we really need more PCPs. Get it? That little add-on was because I knew people might consider going in to other areas from DO schools but we wanted people to consider PCP more.
Using DO schools as a way to get the BEST eduction for Primary Care Physicians is not that outrageous as the schools seem to strive to produce excellent pcps.
Some more information:
from this site.Code:The Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) is a professional degree which requires four years of professional study. Our innovative curriculum is designed to fulfill our mission of training primary care physicians
And this:
from this site.Code:The osteopathic medical profession has a proud heritage of producing primary care practitioners. In fact, the mission statements of the majority of osteopathic medical schools state plainly that their purpose is the production of primary care physicians. Osteopathic medical tradition preaches that a strong foundation in primary care makes one a better physician, regardless of what specialty they may eventually practice.
What was that about knowledge bases?
Thanks for taking the bait, you along with Miami and FSU have made this a better day.
True, but it may explain why you're sensitive/defensive about comments others are making regarding the competitiveness of a DO in the residency selection process. What is the point of DO schools anyway? Hasn't their method of practice completely converged toward the allopathic method? They don't teach much about the philosophy behind osteopathic medicine anyways, it ends up being your basic sciences/clinical sciences after the first week or two, just like in any allopathic curriculum.
*****? That's your answer isn't it. When you are against a wall you just babble and try to insult me? Really? I would have expected more from a DO. The lack of residency positions is not the heart of my solution. The heart of the solution was having two physicians check the script before sending it to the pharmacy. If this is mental masturbation, you must be really desperate because you're getting really hyped up about some off-handed posts I made while checking scores to football games.
My turn to play devils advocate:
What if all medications had to go through the general practitioner. So if the patient sees their cardiologist, the cardiologist sends the diagnosis with the prescription to the primary care practitioner and they add it to the other medications the patient is on, and input all the drugs into the computer and check for interactions. If doesn't check out then they discuss the problem with the cardiologist to find another medication. They could just tack on an extra year to General Practice that focuses on medication therapy.
In a hospital this function can be performed by the hospitalist. Now there isn't as much need for the pharmacist in the dispensing function so pharmacist just have to check the medications to make sure it's the right one. They could even just train pharmacy technicians better and have them do that. (hell there is software to help with that too). It would save a lot of money for pharmacies as they wouldn't have to hire a pharmacist.
Now I'd like to see everyone pick this apart as objectively as possible. From the perspective of corporate in a pharmacy chain as well as physicians who would no longer have to deal with the pesky pharmacist, it would be one of their own discussing this stuff with them.
Well now see that is the problem. You only looked at part of the whole. A very minor part at that.
