In article <000401bde758$4c9344a0$305f7ec2@-jeff>, Jeff Green
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>I'm not at all sure about the hiving off of prescribing from GPs to other
>professions. Given enough time wont doctors lose touch with the drugs that
>others are prescribing? Wouldn't that then make it harder to spot ADR's and
>complicate diagnosis?
Something like 40% (?) of drugs people take are OTC, this doesn't
include alcohol or illegal drugs.
If pharmacists want to take responsibility for prescribing and the
attendant ADRs and their management then why not? Same for nurses. What
I will object to is being asked to sort out problems caused by
inadequate medical knowledge in other's prescribing. Its easy to
prescribe in isolation from a list of indications, a computer could do
it - the trick is having all this other knowledge sloshing about which
puts the prescribing into context, something which would be difficult to
program into a computer at present.
Diagnosis is trying to elucidate all the pertinent facts when I don't
know them - asking about other drugs is but a moment's work.
Its often not what you know but knowing what you don't know and how to
deal with that uncertainty that makes a good diagnostician, especially
in general practice.
I believe our role is changing, becoming more complicated, and if we can
hive off some of the simpler tasks then I'm all for it - gives me time
to do the stuff my training is unique for (including splitting
infinitives).
Regards
George
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