Have you ever been to the doctor and been given a very large prescription? Turns out you’re not alone. Over prescriptions happens all over the US every day. An over prescription is when you get either a drug that is not needed or when given a very large dose. Over Prescriptions can lead to problems such as addiction and waste, as well as raising the question as to why doctors are overprescribing.
One of the effects that come from over prescriptions is the development of addictions. In fact there is a report that says that 75% of addicted people all said that they started from an over prescription or an unnecessary prescription. These are staggering numbers because there are a lot of addicted people and this shows us that there are clearly doctors and physicians that are giving out more than they need to. To top it all off we are now seeing that this leads to thousands of deaths each year because of the creation of drug resistant superbugs. This all leads to us asking how does this happen?
There are many different ways in which these prescriptions happen. One of the ways is that one doctor gives a prescription for a problem one may have. He then causes another problem and prescribes more for that problem. This then leads to the person getting addicted and may even lead to death. Another way these over prescriptions happen are by doctors who are either corrupt, under qualified, or don’t care about patients. These are the doctors that give their patients thousands of pills that aren’t needed. For example there were five doctors who gave over 8.5 million pills to their patients alone(NBC Universal News Group)
The problem with these over prescriptions is that, doctors are allowed to prescribe. There isn’t a limit to prescriptions, unless it is apparent that the prescription is way overboard. This is also a problem because we do not have a way to just go out and find doctors that are over prescribing. My solution to this is to try and convert all of this prescribing to computers and use Artificial Intelligence to help monitor and track how many meds are going to one person and when they are receiving it and when they get another. To protect patient privacy, this online based program would allow access to only the hospital administration in order to monitor the doctors. This would help us see if someone is getting too many meds and help flag it down.
Overall there are many ways in which over prescriptions occur as well as many problems it can cause; such as addiction, waste, and ultimately death. Data monitoring using latest technological methods could help us tremendously in identifying and addressing this issue at an early stage. This can hopefully reduce the prescriptions made and reduce our problem of addiction in the US.
About the Author:
Bahir Iqbal is an 11th grader at Irvington High School with an interest in the medical field. He made this article to show the risks of over prescription and how he would try to stop it from happening.