The most disturbing thing I have found while working at a pharmacy
is not the sheer number of patients (though it is sad), but that most do not
even know why they are taking these medications in the first place, let alone
how they may interact with their other medications, food and vitamins.
This too me is really bad as they could just be taking these medications
and actually be hurting themselves. So I say educate the public in the
following ways.
Medications: People should know and understand
what each drug is used for. So they should be educated on the
nomenclature of each type of drug, or the names adjusted to reflect what they
do in an easier to understand format. This way the populace can know what
each drug effects without having to go through the schooling of a
pharmacist. Also, basic rules of thumb on which medications can be taken
with what will also need to be made known so as to prevent harm as well.
From there pharmacists, or special lines
of communication should be open for anyone to call so that they can ask
questions on their medications. Further, knowledge of when and how to
take the drugs should also be easy to understand. For instance, you should
space an hour between taking a medication that affects your thyroid, and that
taking it with milk makes it less effective. These kinds of thing are
essential to patient health and safety, and limiting that knowledge to just
pharmacists has a negative effect on society in my opinion.
Vitamins and food: Both of these can affect health as
well and interact with medications. So by educating people on what foods
you can eat to maximize Iron levels, which can act as blood thinners, and so
on, we can avoid having to pay for expensive medications, and even avoid
vitamins save to increase absorption rates. This more holistic branch of
medicine can aid in reducing the chances of having to take medicines with
negative side effects, or actually dealing with those side effects without
additional medicines. Also, as mentioned, foods and vitamins can affect
other medications you are taking and thus should also be made available in an
easy to understand format.
Where this should be taught: Rather than teaching sex education
in a health class in high school, maybe health should actually focus on healthy
bodies and knowing and understanding the medicines, foods and vitamins we all
ingest. In addition they can discuss ways to take care of oneself so that
there will not be a need for such chemicals being placed in our bodies.
Conclusion: An educated populace is a healthy
populace as then we may even be able avoid going to a doctor for unnecessary
treatments, needing to bother a busy pharmacist and maybe we can actually treat
ourselves on occasion so as to avoid using our insurance and having to dish out
cash to see a doctor. I will tell you now that in my experience, most
doctors do not know about medicines at all. But pharmacists do, and they
know what interacts with what. And guess what, they have a database that
helps via the internet. Would it not be just grand if we could all do the
same thing and read off the internet in an easy to understand format?
Well you bet it would and that is slowly becoming more viable. But
many sites unfortunately do not have health care lingo written in layman's
terms. So can we adjust the system to make it so that we have to see
doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals less? Yes we can, but
that only comes with a populace that is educated in such a way that we need
only to look to ourselves for the answers we seek.
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