"Poisonous Cocktail"

Recently in the New York Times, there was an article discussing the danger of multiple medications and really not keeping up on what you are taking, understanding the risks. For many of us, this is of course, obvious. It's what we are trained to do-understand people's medications and side effects, etc. But how many patients know this, or think of their medications as inert, and not the potential poisons they are?

I'm not posting this article or discussing it in the meeting this Thursday simply because of the content-I think it also illustrates two important items that we will focusing on this year: The importance of media and the role that it can play in influencing behavior and health literacy.

When I was reading this article, even though it is an op-ed piece, I couldn't help but think: How many people will read this? And how many of them will take a look at their meds, and think "You know, I'm on a couple of these medications..." Or that they are getting older, or don't understand why they are taking their meds, or chronically use OTC medications... Think of how many more patients this article reaches than what we as students do to encourage patients to know about their medications? Media has such a powerful voice, and that's why for American Pharmacists Month we are making such a strong push to engage the media-but more on that later.

Another note-read the language in this article. I don't know a whole lot about "health literacy" but it struck me how simplistic this article was written, but yet how easy it is to read for most patients to read. But, more on that later as we near MRM and the "Embrace Health Literacy" workshop.