JEDDAH, 24 May — Self-prescribing medicines for common ailments is quite common, but this is something that has provoked controversial debates between the general public and specialist medical practitioners. While the public is generally of the view that they don’t need to consult a doctor for simple problems like cough, cold and pain, the medical fraternity takes exception to this saying such people do need to go through a thorough examination before drugs are prescribed.

“It’s cost-effective for people to go to pharmacy and get advice and medicines for minor ailments like common cold or pain,” Prof. Dean Harron of the UK’s Belfast-based 170-year-old Queen’s University said in an interview to Arab News. Prof. Harron, who was here to give a presentation on “Medicines management,” observed that trained and experienced pharmacists were able to provide good advice and treat minor ailments.

“If an ailment is of a serious nature, the pharmacist is obliged not to give advice or prescribe a medicine but to recommend the patient to go to a doctor,” said the professor of pharmacology who in the past worked in Alain, the United Arab Emirates, for seven years and has 250 publications to his credit, including papers and books. “In America as many as 300 million prescriptions are given out every year to people complaining of pain and they spend as much as $16 billion just to get relief from pain,” said Dr. Harron who has worked extensively in the medical faculty doing clinical research, especially in the cardiovascular area. According to him, a major problem facing the world today is many new drugs are coming on the market and hospitals, so doctors and patients have to balance the cost of new drugs with the cost of older drugs. “It’s a tremendous responsibility on the part of medical practitioners as new medicines are introduced from time to time. You’ve to look at the risks of taking new drugs, and look at their costs and benefits. You may wish to save money on one type of drugs so as to be able to spend money on new types of drugs that are coming in,” Dr. Harron said.

“It’s absolutely essential for doctors and paramedics to undergo continuous professional development in the interest of prescribing the right treatment for the right health problem. Merely having an academic degree is not the end of a qualification.

You’ve got to keep upgrading and updating yourself, whether you’re a doctor, a pharmacist or a nurse,” he stressed. “In fact, new drugs may offer benefits, but they can cause problems in the form of side-effects which should be carefully considered before prescribing them. It’s the responsibility of the doctor and the pharmacist to understand each new drug and its efficacy,” he said.

“Every new medicine considered for prescription should be evidence-based and scientifically proven. You’ve got to look at adverse effects in relation to the patient to whom a drug is prescribed, and you’ve got to see the clinical outcome as well as the cost of producing that clinical outcome,” said Dr. Harron whose presentation was organized by the Jeddah branch of the Dubai-based Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries (Julphar) that also introduced “Profinal” as a caring way to combat fever and pain in oropharyngitis, here last week.