| · Adverse events
· Supermarket pharmacy
· Research
· Regulation of medicines
· OTC statins
· Pricing (2)
· Pharmacy practice
· CPD
· Reciprocity
· Registration examination
· Veterinary pharmacy
· The Society
· Birdsgrove House (5)
Letters to the Editor
|
Pharmacy practice
Questionable recommendations
From Mr R. Birkby, MRPharmS
I thought PJ readers might be interested to hear about a couple of my
patients who returned from holiday in the Mediterranean this week.
The first was a woman who developed mild otitis externa while in Turkey.
She visited the pharmacy there and was recommended something equivalent
to an Otomize ear spray with a course of ciprofloxacin tablets.
The second, a mother who returned from the Mediterranean (I am not sure
which country) wanted to purchase some more of a certain “wonderful
cream” for her son. The toddler’s eczema had flared up on holiday
and the pharmacist recommended clobetasol cream. When the mother asked
whether the cream was a steroid, the pharmacist apparently assured her
it was not.
Many thoughts went through my mind, in particular about the safe and effective
use of medicines, and the world-wide problem of antibiotic resistance.
If these are first-line choices for mild problems, I would like to see
what is recommended in more resistant cases.
Robert Birkby
Halifax,
West Yorkshire |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal