Guide to Prescribing For Junior Prescribers and Medical Students
R
ational treatment requires logical approach and common sense. You should select your personal medicines because you are responsible for your patient and should not pass it to others; like colleagues, superiors or medical representatives. Personal medicines are your own selection from guidelines, National List of Essential Medicines, and formularies. You should judge each medicine and evaluate major and minor pharmacological features. When you select your personal medicines you can easily find alternatives when your first choice is contraindicated or unavailable
Steps of rational prescribing 1.
Define patient’s problem :
this can be:
•
Sign of underlying disease
•
Psychological or social problems
•
Non adherence to treatment
•
Disease or disorder
Adapted from the WHO Guide to Prescribing: A Practical Manual by Vries, Henning, Hogerzeil and Fresle