Complete this month's Continuing Education questions to qualify for extra NZ College of Pharmacists credits. go
Last month's answers here
31 August
Warning for employers after Wellington pharmacy loses the test case for the new 90 day trial law. Read here.
24 August
Switzerland is on track to join 14 American states, Canada, Spain and the Netherlands in legalising marijuana for chronic pain relief through pharmacy. Listen to pioneer in this field Dr Claude Vaney, head of neurology at the Berner Clinic in Crans Montana, explain how the link between pot and pain relief is no longer open to question.
3 August
Protect your children from prescription drug abuse... Watch the video here.
28 July - Hospital robots
Processing drugs for patients in the UK. Watch it here.
21 July - Be realistic
Australian pharmacy needs to set realistic expectations for the future in the minds of students, according to Australian Pharmacy Guild president Kos Sclavos. Read more.
14 July - Discover the "science" behind the Bach flower remedies
7 July - A tale of pharmacy heroism
16 June - Your dysfunctional work family
Ever notice how the same personalities crop up no matter where you work? Read more
9 June - GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAL!!
Top 10 World Cup Health Tips.
2 June - The trials of being a pharmacist
An American spoof. See it here.
19 May - Canadian backlog
More than six years after Health Canada started regulating natural health products for safety and effectiveness, it still hasn’t processed licence applications for about 10,000 non-traditional, homeopathic, food or personal care remedies now sold in Canada. Read more
5 May - Here is proof there is nothing new under the sun.
This copy of the Apothecary's oath, c1300, hangs on the wall of the Pharmacy Guild head office.
27 April - Canadians won't swallow pharmacy pill
A plan in Ontario, Canada to reform generic drugs has revealed the majority of Ontarians believe pharmacies are motivated by bottom-line profits. Read the Toronto Sun article here.
13 April - Ireland will not follow NZ's lead
NZ's DHB system would fragment Irish health services, says deputy chief medical officer Philip Crowley. Read the Irish Times article here
18 March - Unusual eateries
From the moment you walk into the lobby, a wheelchair lets you know this isn’t a conventional restaurant. The crutches hanging on the walls, the hospital beds used as tables and the waitresses dressed as nurses make you feel you’re in a genuine hospital.
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2 March - Casino Pharmacy?
They say it's hard to surprise residents of Nevada, but a pharmacy located within a casino is causing many to do a double take.
Read more
19 February
Weed, booze and other old school meds
Granted, hindsight is 20/20, but some awfully strange substances have been used for pharmaceutical purposes in the past. Here are some vintage advertisements touting items that we might balk at taking today.
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12 February
Homeopathy skeptics
The New Zealand Skeptics have taken up the sword against homeopathy. Check out their campaign.
Read more
3 February
A day at the pharmacy
The comings and goings from a provincial small-town pharmacy in the UK. Bozos, weirdos, freaks and the occasional lovely patient. Plus the occasional educational post, er, maybe.
Read more...
25 January
Classifieds - not to be taken seriously
Ever gone through a list of classifieds for a laugh? Here area a few top examples...
11 January
Why pay for the care of the careless?
In August last year an emergency medicine physician at the University of Mississippi Medical Centre in the US, sent a letter to the editor of the Clarion Ledger, Jackson, Mississippi. It was published under the title "Why pay for the care of the careless?" and has since turned into an email circling the globe. Why? Possibly because it criticises a patient's lifestyle choices and in so doing, quite accurately puts the blame for the global publicly funded healthcare crisis down to a "Culture Crisis" instead of a "Health Care Crisis". Here is the letter written by Dr Starner Jones...
During my last night's shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with an expensive shiny gold tooth, multiple elaborate expensive tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favourite R&B tune for a ringtone. Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid. She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer.
And our Congress expects me to pay for this woman's health care? Our nation's health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. It is a crisis of culture - a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. A culture that thinks "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me".
Life is really not that hard. Most of us reap what we sow. Don't you agree?