What does an ideal Prescription contain?

A prescription is an important legal document. It is an order for medication, issued by a qualified physician, dentist, veterinary doctor, or a licensed medical practitioner, to a patient. The pharmacy honours the prescription by dispensing the medicines written on it to the patient. Generally, prescription designates medicines written on it to the patient and dosages

to be administered to a particular patient at a specified time. Most prescriptions are handwritten by the doctor. However, in today's advanced world, a typed or computer printed prescription may be accepted, provided it is personally dated and signed with his usual signature by the prescriber.

The patient is then expected to follow the order written on the prescription to consume the

Medicines. The prescription thus acts as a mediator between the doctor, pharmacist and the patient.

An ideal prescription should be on a properly printed letterhead (containing various informations related to the doctor), include the superscription or heading with the symbol "R" or "Rx", which stands for the word recipe (meaning, in Latin, to take) and be typed or written by the doctor to contain various details (related to the patient, the medicine, and other details), as follows:

A prescripDOCTOR'S DETAILS

· Full name

· Qualifications

· Registration number

· Address

· Phone number

PATIENT DETAILS

· Full name

· Age

· Weight

· Address, Phone number

· Sex

· Married – Yes/No

MEDICINE DETAILS

·

Name of the medicine

·Strength or potency

Dosage form

· Dosage

· Dosing instructions

· Total quantity

OTHER DETAILS

· Date

·Doctor’s signature

· Refill information

Unfortunately, in India, many people do not carry a prescription to the pharmacy, and have got into the wrong habit of asking for medicines by various other means like verbally by name or by colour or price of the medicines. Sometimes they show old strips/cartons/bottle/bottle caps, writing name of the medicine/s on bits of paper or on the hand or on mobile messages or informing the medicine over telephone for a home delivery. Such are dangerous practices. Just writing or mentioning the name of the medicine may not always do as medicines come in a variety of potencies, dosage forms and combination of drugs bearing the same trade name with minor changes in extensions (and containing drugs in different potencies and combinations). Consumers must ensure that they carry a prescription when they go to a pharmacy to buy their quantity of prescription medicines.