On Prescriptions, Encryptions And The Pair Of Pimps

In many of the celebrity writer Dan Brown's novels, the famous Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon would be summoned to decode a symbol, the meaning of which only he can unearth on earth. But he too will meet his Waterloo deciphering some of the doctors' prescriptions.


Why do doctors pre-scribble? Handwriting itself is on the verge of extinction. But we find that most of the prescriptions are handwritten if not hand-scribbled. A prescription usually has two parts. The first part contains some notes about the disease and the patient .Next come the names of drugs per se.

. Some doctors used to write something like EO or AOO in his prescriptions. Even after referring to many international medical journals,No one will be able to decode them.Later I understood that the code stands for his fees. Alphabets represent numbers and thus EO becomes Rs. 50 and AOO, Rs. 100.


Regarding drugs, essentially they have to be written in capital letters and any ambiguity can create serious problems. Unfortunately, some write in such a way that only a particular pharmacist, usually attached to the same hospital, can understand the drug names pre-scribbled. Probably, the doctor might have a noble ambition of getting his name included in the Forbes list of billionaires.
Some are too busy to spend time on writing legibly. But that cannot be taken as an excuse when it causes damage to a patient's health. But some are habitual poor in handwriting and they can better switch to computer typing.

Once, a pharmacist, failing to understand the name of a particular drug, substituted it with another drug. On cross-checking with the doctor, the patient was informed that it was not the name of a drug but was his own.

Stringent guidelines have been laid down but they need to be followed more vigilantly.
Interestingly, a doctor wrote a romantic letter to his lady love. It was the pre-email era and hence was handwritten. The poor girl could not identify even a single word. But she was very clever that she went to a pharmacist and got the letter read though at the expense of their privacy.


There are lot of complaints about Dr-pharma nexus and Dr-lab nexus and these scribblings give a helping hand for the nexus to flourish.Who cares for the poor patient?


Jayasala 42