One of the dangers of the prevalence of television and other advertising media pushing drugs is the public's lack of information. “If you have these symptoms, you could have ABC disease, and you should talk to your doctor about XYZ drug.” It is one thing if the drug is a prescription, and quite another if it's an over the counter (OTC) remedy. However, it can sometimes be quite easy to get a physician to write that prescription without a thorough diagnostic process.

So many people believe that if they read something in a reputable periodical or see it on TV, that it's true. While these advertisements are generally truthful, the general public doesn't hold medical or pharmacological degrees. They might have a couple of the vague symptoms and think this new medicine will cure what ails them. If one brand of cold medicine didn't work, they'll try another (which most likely contains the same ingredients). Worse yet, if one dose didn't work, then they think that maybe a double dose will. Unknowingly, they may be overdosing on acetaminophen.

Another issue is the casual conversations between patients about how they use their medications and patients who don't understand what their meds are and why they're taking them. For instance, the cute little eighty-year-old woman who tells you she is taking lasix and lanoxin. She knows the names, but she thinks they are “vitamins” the doctor gave her, and has no idea that she has a cardiac condition.

Another cute little eighty-year-old, Mrs. Giles, was admitted through the emergency room with a pulse of 35 and blood pressure of barely 80/50. She had been experiencing some angina earlier in the day, and her friend gave her one of her “heart pills” (a nitroglycerine). This helped, and the friend told her the doctor told her to take her “heart pills” whenever she had any chest pain. Mrs. Giles knew she took “heart pills” too, but her doctor told her to take one a day to prevent the “spells” she was having. Maybe he forgot to tell her she could take them if she had chest pain too. After all, she hadn't had these pains before, so they wouldn't have discussed this aspect of the pills. So she took her lanoxin again because of the chest pain. It helped a little and so when she had pain again an hour later she took another one. A couple of hours later, her daughter came by and found her on the floor barely breathing. Mrs. Giles didn't want to trouble the doctor on a Saturday; she'd just try taking the pills first.