My pharm. class followed the typical academic exercise in memorizing information which was 80% useless to modern medical practice. The heavy focus on biochemistry and mechanisms of action were interesting but mostly irrelevant, because they didn't help us answer questions most relevant to clinical practice; we don't typically choose drug A over B because of a biochemical property, but because there's evidence that one works better than the other, is more cost effective, has a better response rate in a particular population, etc.
Shifting pharm. education to focus more on those types of things - how do we choose the right drug; how can we use evidence to critically choose when a new, more expensive drug, is actually better? Or marginally better but cost-effective? This type of teaching is relegated to one-off class' and side-topics. Its not center stage.
The methods of big Pharma can definitely be unethical, but I think the real problem is our physicians are fundamentally unprepared to ask the right questions and make the best decisions.
This isn't going to happen because it turns doctors into technicians: You have this illness? Click click click - OK it says this drug is best.
Doctors like the thought that they are evaluating each case based on first principles.
Right now there is: Dr. -> Urgent Care -> Emergency Room
We need something below Dr., for the really routine stuff. In some countries certain drugs are not over the counter, but are prescribed by pharmacists.
(Obviously there is a very important place for proper diagnosis. I'm talking about the really obvious stuff.)
In the UK its quite common to see a nurse for routine things that you're talking about here, personally I've not seen a doctor in years because of this.
perhaps it might be better to have doctors prescribe for a specific issue (eg: needs something for allergies) and then leave it up to the pharmacist to decide which specific pill and dosage level as opposed to prescribing the specific pill themself (eg allegra). I mean, it's not like the pharmacist isn't going to already look over the prescribed medication to make sure it won't negatively interact with the patient's other medications
of course, that's assuming that the doctor and the pharmacist will be able to see each other's notes and that egos won't get in the way. but it's not like doctors don't alredy farm certain tasks out to specialists (eg radiologists for reading x-rays or neurologists for reading ct scans).
My pharm. class followed the typical academic exercise in memorizing information which was 80% useless to modern medical practice. The heavy focus on biochemistry and mechanisms of action were interesting but mostly irrelevant, because they didn't help us answer questions most relevant to clinical practice; we don't typically choose drug A over B because of a biochemical property, but because there's evidence that one works better than the other, is more cost effective, has a better response rate in a particular population, etc.
Shifting pharm. education to focus more on those types of things - how do we choose the right drug; how can we use evidence to critically choose when a new, more expensive drug, is actually better? Or marginally better but cost-effective? This type of teaching is relegated to one-off class' and side-topics. Its not center stage.
The methods of big Pharma can definitely be unethical, but I think the real problem is our physicians are fundamentally unprepared to ask the right questions and make the best decisions.