The importance in the role of pharmacists

For decades, pharmacists have been shunned upon. Words have been said which demean them just because they are not given the license to prescribe, or even change doses given by doctors.

This includes "What would you know? You're just a pharmacist."

This further includes all the crap and rudeness pharmacists have to endure while patiently telling doctors that they have written the wrong dose, or there has been an interaction.

BUT

Let me further highlight the importance of the role of pharmacists.

Pharmacists are involved in checking for dosages, checking for adverse drug reactions, understanding your profile, helping you change your lifestyle management so that you are able to get the maximum advantage from your treatment.

Let me give an example of a patient who is now in hospital, and she is dear to me.

Mrs X, 83 yrs old. NO case of High blood pressure, BP 130/85. Went to a doctor, Doctor put her on Norvasc 2.5mg (which is a tablet for high blood pressure). Mrs X is a paranoid old lady. She loves taking tablets even though there's nothing wrong with her. Went to another doctor. Spoke to the doctor about it, and the doctor, even though seeing her on Norvasc, put her on ANOTHER blood pressure medication, called Natrilix, which is a diuretic.

Now... The threshold for High Blood Pressure is 140/90? or something like that.

Still, Mrs X is old.

Doctor, knowing that it is a new drug, didn't let her know more about the drug. Didn't let her know that the drug has the potential to cause electrolyte disturbances. 2 days into the medication, Mrs X started feeling nauseous and throwing up. 3 days later she started feeling faint, dizzy, and had to lie down. 4 days later she started hallucinating, seeing ants around etc. 5 days later she fell down 4 times in a day.

All signs of electolyte disturbance.

She has since been admitted to hospital since yesterday.

NOW... If it was done by a pharmacist, pharmacist would
1) Ask the patient for a BP reading
2) Check for previous medications
3) Realised that patient is put on 2 blood pressure medications, ask the patient why so
4) Counselled a patient on how to take it, the relevant side effects.
5) Given the patient a Consumer Medical Information to bring home to read, which will give her the side effects, and given her directions on how to use them.

After this incident, I have realised the worth of pharmacists. Yes, I totally felt beforehand that what I was doing was a crap job. NOT only is the pay low for a professional, there's no where to go, no ladder to climb. NOT only do we have to accept crap from doctors, we have to deal with them and learn to adjust our expectations. Also there's LITTLE social respect from people, from customers who expect things and yell at us.

True, I am not able to prescribe medications, BUT I can diagnose.
True, all I can do is dispense, BUT I can counsel.

However, eventually I can give the best treatment regime to the patient to the best of my ability, and help out my patients to the best I can. In order to prevent these possibilities that happened to Mrs X. I can make a difference to society. I realised that no matter what people say, pharmacists do make a huge difference to society.

Am NOT gonna let society get me down. Neither am I going to let this incident that happened to Mrs X get me down.

Because God has put me in this position, and I am determined to live up to it.