Keeping Up to Date with Pharmacology
Not every change in the realm of drugs is as dramatic as the COX2 inhibitors have been of late. Vioxx and Bextra have created quite a stir throughout the medical community and the media with the controversy of leaving Celebrex on the market as well as with record-setting lawsuits for wrongful deaths and damages.
You can't watch much television or read a general interest magazine without some sort of encounter with an advertisement from a group of lawyers recruiting you to join in the fight against a particular drug if you took it and suffered side effects.
The media also runs many ads promoting drugs for almost anything that could possibly ail you. The challenge for nurses today is to keep up with the drug information and be informed of issues as well as new drugs coming to market. Nurses are at the forefront of patient education. They need to be informed and have access to the latest information in order to accurately inform their patients about the medications they have been prescribed.
Nurses need to use only the latest editions of drug books and ensure that old ones are destroyed. Don't pass them on to your family and friends. There is too much information that changes too rapidly to take a chance that a loved one would reference a several years old drug book with less than optimal results.
Electronic databases from reputable publishers can provide you with the most up-to-date information. Learn to utilize these sources and access Internet pharmacology sites as well. And don't forget to ask the pharmacists. They can and should be your most valuable resource for drug information. That's their job and their field of expertise. They can break down the information into simple nontechnical terms so that you can provide your patients with all the information they need. Pharmacists can also give you some insight into the inside information about drug studies and why certain drugs have been pulled from the market.
Patients frequently see more than one physician. Sometimes the doctors are aware and communicate, but most times they don't talk even if they are aware that the patient is seeing someone else. What typically happens is that each physician orders different medications; sometimes to counteract the side effects of other drugs and sometimes independently for other issues altogether. Unless the patient obtains all her medications from one pharmacy, it is possible that no one is even remotely taking responsibility to coordinate her care. Only in recent years have pharmacists taken on this responsibility except possibly in small town situations.
Never assume that your patient doesn't require education about his medications just because he's been taking them for years. He might have a good idea and then again how many little old ladies have told you “they're just vitamins” or “just something the doctor gave me for my spells”?
Patients can even be taking two versions of the same medication such as Lisinopril and Zestril. Neither doctor knows what the other has ordered, and the medications have different names depending on the manufacturer. Only when the patient passes out from hypotension does anyone even consider that such a problem might exist. Nurses need to explore medication issues with patients, and they need to have all the latest information at their fingertips in order to best do this.
