Drugs & Clinical Trials | By July 16, 2008 | By JC, MD | 1 Comment

Pharmacists Really Do Have Prescribing Power

I read with interest my fellow Brain Blogger’s article on pharmacists and their essential value to the medical team. While pharmacists do not have prescribing power and often get a bad rap as being “pill counters,” it is clear to me that their position in the medical team food chain is equivalent to having prescribing power.

At the very least, a good medical team or ICU team will have a pharmacist as part of the team to help with medications. This includes making sure the patient has no allergies, that there is no resistance or cross reactivity between medications, and checking to make sure the prescribed medication is clinically indicated. In this situation the pharmacist is sort of like the medical case manager. He or she “owns” the prescriptions of that team. Read more →