Some Differences Between Physicians and Pharmacists: A Plan for Relieving Them*
✍ Scribed by Utech, P.Henry
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Year
- 1916
- Weight
- 183 KB
- Volume
- 5
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0898-140X
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
As pharmacists we have all observed the gradual changing character of our businesses within recent years and perhaps have often paused in reflection to wonder just where the procession is leading us. The pharmacist of teday is not the pharmacist of a decade ago, nor again of yester-year. The changing times bring new conditions, and these must be met, studied, and applied if we are to play our part successfully in the great game of business.
Of the many basic causes underlying these changing conditions, perhaps the one most frequently heard is the complaint of the dearth in prescription writing by the physicians, and it is the aim and purpose of this paper simply to pave the way for a discussion of one phase at least of this problem-the suggestion of a possible plan of educating physicians along ethical lines-in the hope that the discussion ensuing may be both profitable and mutually helpful.
Chief among the reasons for the growth of non-prescribing by physicians is the one that pharmacists frequently make an excessive charge for prescriptions which call for such simple remedies as calomel or strychnine tablets, quinine pills, &.-the charge being out of all proportion to the service rendered ; and because of this extraordinary charge the physician, seeking his patient's every interest, in consequence, is compelled to give away gratis these simple remedies, thereby depriving * Read before the joint session of the Section on Commercial Interests and the Section on Education and Legislation, A. Ph. A., San Francisco meeting.