When they begin clinical training, most Medicine students do not have a very clear idea of how to prescribe a drug to their patients or what
information they must give, so today we show you a Official guide to good medical prescription issued by the WHO.
But, why is the bad prescription given?
Usually this is because the pharmacological training Initially, it has concentrated more on theory than on practice. The contents were probably “drug-focused” and consisted of indications and unwanted effects of different drugs. But in clinical practice it is necessary to proceed in reverse, from diagnosis to drug.
In addition, patients vary in age, gender, size, and sociocultural characteristics, and these factors may determine the selection of the treatment. Patients also have their own perceptions of what is appropriate treatment, and should be fully informed treatment partners.
These issues are not always taught in medical schoolswhere the number of hours dedicated to therapeutics is low, compared to those dedicated to the traditional teaching of pharmacology.
Books can also be of little use…
Undergraduate clinical training often focuses on diagnostic capabilities,
more than therapeutic. Sometimes students are only expected to copy the decisions of prescription from their clinical teachers, or current therapeutic guidelines, without being told why certain treatments are selected.
Books can also be of little use. Pharmacology reference texts and forms are often drug-oriented, and although textbooks of clinical subjects and therapeutic protocols are disease-oriented and give therapeutic recommendations. They rarely explain why these treatments are selected. Different sources may give conflicting advice.
The result of this orientation of the teaching of pharmacology is that although
acquire pharmacological knowledge, prescriptive skills remain
weak.
In one study it was found that doctors recent graduates chose an inappropriate or questionable drug in about half the cases, wrote a third of the prescriptions incorrectly and they did not give important information to the patient in two thirds of the encounters.
Some students believe that their prescription habits they can improve after completing their undergraduate studies. But research shows that even though you gain overall experience, prescriptive skills they don’t improve much after graduation.
The bad prescribing habits are the origin of ineffective and unsafe treatments,
of exacerbation or lengthening of the disease, of tension and damage to the patient and of
higher costs.
They also make the prescriber vulnerable to influences that can cause an irrational prescription, such as pressure from the patient, bad examples from colleagues and information from laboratory representatives. Later the new graduates will copy them, thus closing the circle. Changing already entrenched prescription habits is very difficult.
Hence, good training is necessary before bad habits have a chance to develop.
Official guide to good medical prescription issued by the WHO
Therefore, this Official Guide to the good medical prescription issued by the WHO is aimed primarily at undergraduate medical students who are about to start clinical courses.
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