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by MoodyTU
2311 days ago
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In my experience, medication interactions are both solidly in the wheelhouse of physicians and taken quite seriously. As someone below pointed out, it's still a huge problem, and having more eyes and a distinct training/set of skills in the pipeline is a win for everyone. I do not know this as a fact, but I don't believe US pharmacists are able to adjust dosing on the fly - though of course they can and do reach back out to physicians with questions. I had an experience recently that really solidified my respect and appreciation for pharmacists though. I was standing in line behind a older gentleman who had maybe a 10 minute conversation with the pharmacist. I tried to mind my own business but couldn't help but hear the overall gist. He was very confused about what his medication was for and especially how to take it. The pharmacist clearly had a relationship with him and wrote down schedule based on the meds he was already taking. He thanked her by name and she told him she's give him a call later in the week to check in on how he was managing. I was curious (and the last person in line) so I asked her about her work and how often she ends up so involved. Apparently she made lots of calls throughout the week to people, and people came in confused about their medications often enough. By percentage it sounded like a minority of the patients, but her assistance was obviously super important to a lot of people in the neighborhood. I don't think I've ever asked a pharmacist for more info on my life, but I'm very grateful they exist as a resource. At the very least, I think it's important we don't think of pharmacies as counting factories that can be replaced by robots. And while I'm all for dropping the price of healthcare across the board, I hope the kind of value that kind of one-on-one interaction at least gets it's fair shake in any accounting done thinking about making a switch to tele-pharmacies and the like. |
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