Prescription Writing — Best Practices to Reduce Prescribing Errors

oleh: Senthil Rajasekaran, Levi Hall, Nelia Afonso

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Association of American Medical Colleges 2014-05-01

Deskripsi

Abstract Prescribing is a fundamental part of the work of new residents, who write and review many prescriptions each day. It is a complex task requiring knowledge of medicines and the diseases they are used to treat, careful judgment of risks and benefits of treatment, and attention to detail. It is also apparent in other research that this is an area new residents find challenging. Lack of prescribing skills among residents has been widely reported. Granting these new doctors prescribing privileges without adequate assessment may encourage poor prescribing habits and promote medication errors. Following AAMC recommendations to implement medication safety learning activities, we created this session on prescription writing for undergraduate medical students. This session was formatted as a small-group session within a large classroom. The instructor's guide provides a step-by-step approach to implementing this session. The PowerPoint slides have been animated and notes added for each relevant slide to help faculty to make the best use of this resource. A handout with a set of five prescriptions that have commonly identified prescribing errors is intended for the first small-group activity. The second handout is a set of blank prescriptions that each student should be required to fill out at the end of the session. This session is offered at the end of the second year, right before the students embark on their clinical training. We have plans to do follow up sessions during their third and fourth years as well.