Cutting prescription to size

Sir,
Refer news item ‘Cutting prescription to size’ DE May 12, 2019 which is authored by a reputed and an experienced doctor, namely Dr. K.L.Chowdhary. He is a reputed doctor of great imminence. The respected doctor, who has authored this article, has most explicitly and amply explained the negative results of long listed prescriptions of the practicing doctors being prescribed by them for their patients suffering from multiple ailments. It is an eye opener not for the practicing doctors only, but also for the patients suffering from multiple ailments, particularly the aged ones who are supposed to take many types of medicines, being the victims of multiple ailments due to the prolonged age related problems of health. When we go to a doctor and mention our health problems and ailments, it mostly happens that the doctor concerned tries to attend to each such ailment of the patient that he is suffering from. Accordingly, the doctor prescribes various medicines for each ailment of the patient. Here lies the wisdom of the patient to tell to the doctor concerned to ensure prescribing of medicines with caution, so that there are no serious side effects of such a long list of the medicines. The doctor concerned has equally to be cautious to ensure that the patient may not get other complications due to over drugging. Dr. Chowdhary has very meticulously mentioned in the above article that cutting of the prescription list to the bare minimum requirement is needed to ensure that the patient may not have other side effects like renal failures, gastro intestinal upsets or other health complications. The imminent doctor author has very rightly sounded an alarm in this regard through this article, when he mentions, “This present case is illustrative of polypharmacy that is the curse of current medical practice. I prefer to call it hyper-pharmacy. Does a fellow need the entire pharmacpoeia to live and sustain life? At what cost?” It carries an enough of alarm for the present medical practitioners and to some extent to the suffering patients too. The learned doctor author has further very rightly mentioned in his article that ” One of the primary goals of the doctor must be to avoid polypharmacy or institute rational polypharmacy after a careful and detailed assessment of the various afflictions of the patient, of the current medications and all recent medication changes. A new medication should be added only when there is a clear indication for its use”. So should be the approach of the patients too to request the doctor concerned to prescribe the bare minimum medicines needed for treatment, keeping in view the fatal side effects of extra drugging which can be avoided or ignored.
P.L.Khushu
187/5, Channi Himmat
Housing Colony, Jammu.

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