Are you sure this is a valid prescription?

Seen yesterday on the PRN side of the drug chart:

Vodka 50mls PO

on the same chart, regular side:

Chlordiazepoxide 20mg QDS

The nurse who picked this up bleeped the pharmacist who briefly did a good impression of a beetroot and then looked like they were about to lay an egg.

The pharmacist's main issues were:

a) Why wasn't this patient (who was an alcoholic) being detoxed?
b) Where did the doctor think they had medicinal vodka in the hospital?
c) What was the doctor thinking prescribing alcohol *and* a benzodiazepine together?

Sadly, the pharmacist left before the doctor arrived to sort out the chart. My favourite part of this was the doctor's eye-rolling and suggestions that the pharmacist was being over the top in getting upset about this. Oh, and then asking around the ward if we knew what alcohol pharmacy *did* stock.

So many of the shifts I've worked over the summer have been guides on what not to do as a doctor. Behaviour-wise and common sensical.

30 Day challenge: Day 3

Day 3: Your views on drugs and alcohol

An Old Fashioned from ReeseCLloyd's Flickr stream

In an act of unintentional irony, I am blogging drunk.

Which I guess tells you a lot about my attitude to alcohol if nothing else. In my defence, I should point out that I'm not in school tomorrow or working or doing anything (other than maybe going for a run tomorrow morning) which require me to be up early. Not that I generally drink to excess. Generally.

I think drugs is a topic that can be very complicated. For an individual, I think it can represent any number of subtleties in their personality. All the dreadful aspects of the drug trade and all the ills it brings on the world aside, I think if you can't handle your high, you should probably leave any mind-altering substance well enough alone. I particularly think that becoming intoxicated and getting behind the wheel of an automobile is one of the most awful things a person can do.

I can't think of much to write on this topic without sounding judgmental in one way or another, so maybe I need to go away and think on this some more. Maybe that's the point of this exercise - to go and explore topics you thought you had pegged?