Posted by Prescription should come only after history, examination, investigation, diagnosis, discussion, consent, warnings and plan for follow up. From a doctor who has the evidence and experience.
Pharmacists don’t know what they don’t know. What they do know is that they want to increase profit and perhaps up sell with some vitamins and other nonsense.
The Queensland initiative to have pharmacists prescribe antibiotics, paediatric vaccination, and oral contraceptives ignores scientific evidence about the difficulty of diagnosis of dysuria and antibiotic resistance just for starters.
Patients seeking medication from anyone other than a doctor are missing an opportunity to have a potentially life saving diagnosis made.
Pharmacists doing public consults and questioning the doctors’ diagnosis is bad enough. Pharmacists prescribing these items will heap harm upon patient harm in Australia.