Pharmacists fail test of patient protection.Many pharmacists are failing to warn consumers about taking dangerous combinations of prescription drugs that could land them in hospital emergency rooms, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a recent study. U.S. News & World Report U.S. News & World Report Weekly newsmagazine published in Washington, D.C. U.S. News was founded in 1933 by David Lawrence (1888–1973) to cover important domestic events; he founded World Report in 1945 to treat world news. The two magazines were merged in 1948. in cooperation with Georgetown University School of Medicine External links
1. ^ [2] 2. ^ [3] 3. tested 245 pharmacies in seven cities Seven Cities may refer to:
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of ; Philadelphia; and San Francisco. More than half the pharmacists failed to warn consumers about probable ill effects of the drugs if they were taken together. With one particular drug combination that was so lethal that doctors thought the prescriptions should not be filled at all, one-third of the pharmacists dispensed both medications with no comment beyond, "Thank you, have a nice day." (Susan Headden et al., Danger at the Drugstore, U.S. News & World Rep., Aug. 26, 1996, at 46.) Pharmacists, who are rigorously trained in how drugs affect the body, are often regarded by patients as protectors who catch prescription errors made by doctors and explain proper dosage to customers. Druggists are professionally obligated ob·li·gate tr.v. ob·li·gat·ed, ob·li·gat·ing, ob·li·gates 1. To bind, compel, or constrain by a social, legal, or moral tie. See Synonyms at force. 2. To cause to be grateful or indebted; oblige. to prevent these errors, and, increasingly, they are legally liable for them. A Michigan appeals court ruled this year that pharmacists had assumed a legal duty to warn duty to warn AIDS A legal concept indicating that a health care provider who learns that an HIV-infected Pt is likely to transmit the virus to another identifiable person must take steps to warn that person consumers when they started using a computer system that checked for adverse drug interactions. (Baker v. Arbor Drugs, 544 N.W.2d 727 (Mich. Ct. App. Jan. 16, 1996).) U.S. News reported that more than 40 states now require pharmacists to offer counseling to patients and 11 allow pharmacists to prescribe some medications, a right traditionally reserved for doctors. Pharmacists who advertise these services may be especially vulnerable when errors occur. According to New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. attorneys Terrence McCartney and Paul Rheingold "When pharmacists give advice, they act as professionals and must use due care. They may be held responsible for knowing that the customer is taking a drug...that might react adversely with [another] drug." (From Prescription to Over-the-Counter: Watered-Down Warnings, TRIAL, Mar. 1996, at 26.) U.S. News reported that some of the mistakes were made because druggists were overworked, fatigued, or temporarily replaced by inexperienced standins. There was also confusion about the adverse effects of certain drug mixtures. Confusion persists, said the report, because bad news about medicine is sometimes hard to find. The pharmaceutical industry focuses its studies on the positive impact of drugs, and far fewer resources are used to study adverse drug interactions. |
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