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Pursuing a Career in Health Care Essay

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When a patient walks in to visit the pharmacy they are making a decision about their health care. Patient’s health care decisions should not be limited to choosing their doctor or pharmacy, but should be extended to deciding how that doctor and pharmacist works with them to achieve their personal health goals. Pursuing a career in health care requires a commitment to a long-term formal education, a great deal of debt and a lifelong commitment to continuing education. After completing school a pharmacist has a well-developed set of tools for dealing with patient populations to help them manage their health care. These tools are not acquired to determine patient’s health care needs for them. Often pharmacists and doctors complete their …show more content…

In pharmacy for example we must never assume that a patient understands how to take their medicine, so we counsel all patients on proper adherence. In the pharmacy I have experienced patients that have no clue what their medications are for, why they are on them or what they are doing for them. How can we expect a patient to be adherent with their medication if they don’t even know why they are taking it? Obviously these patients where subject to assumptions made by health care providers. It was assumed that they were too stupid to understand, or simply the doctor thought they new what was best for the patient and didn’t think it was worth the time to tell the patient what treatment was being given to them. This idea of knowing what is best for the patient beyond his or her own decisions is the idea of paternalism. Paternalism is toxic to medicine, as it belittles the patient and creates barriers between the provider and patient. Patients are humans and as a human we have a right to know what is happening with our own bodies and most importantly have the right to decide what will happen to our bodies. If a patient wants to question a treatment, request a treatment or deny a treatment it is their decision to do so. Patient autonomy cannot be overlooked, as it is the foundation of health care. Pharmacy is a profession it is not a job. If I make a mistake it can affect a patient’s health care in frighteningly

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