9 Things I Wish I Had Known About Online Pharmacies
Not much of a day passes by when our e-mail inboxes do not fill with ads for prescription medications. Many of these emails promise to deliver drugs of all classes by overnight courier with no prescription. While there are actually legitimate online pharmacies, and the practice of telemedicine or cyber-medicine is gaining acceptance, this change in the way medicine is being practiced is rocking the foundations of the medical establishment. Being able to consult a physician online, and obtain prescription medications delivered to your doorstep by UPS has broad social and legal implications. The web facilitates making drugs available to men and women who might not be able to afford to pay US prices, are embarrassed to find out a physician face-to-face, or are suffering from pain, the treatment of which puts most doctors in direct conflict with the 'war on drugs' but conversely there will be the question whether these pharmacies make drugs available to recreational drug users without the oversight of a licensed medical practitioner.
Health treatment within the US has reached a point where it's expensive and impersonal which has caused the consumer to become generally unsatisfied with the medical establishment as a whole. Examples include the huge differences between the expense of drugs in the US and Canada, long wait times in US pharmacies, and poor service in general. Perhaps realizing this, US customs appears to tolerate the millions of Americans that visit Canada each and every year to buy their medications, as for the most part, these 'drug buyers' are elderly American's that can not afford the high cost of filling their prescriptions within the US.
Rather than to travel to Canada or Mexico millions of Americans are now turning to the net for both their medical needs. Telemedicine (or cyber medicine) provides consumers with the ability to both consult with a physician online and order drugs online at discounted prices. This has resulted in consumers turning to online pharmacies for their medical needs, and in particular pharmacies with a relationships with a physician, which permit the consumer to completely bypass the traditional brick and mortar pharmacies, with the added advantage of having their physician act as an intermediary between the consumer as well as the pharmacy. In line with Johnson (2005) this really is as a result of consumers becoming very dissatisfied with regards to managing both local pharmacies and medical experts. As Johnson, notes, "Consumers are more very likely to know the name of their hairdresser than their pharmacist." When Johnson (2005) rated the various professions in the health care system, he found that pharmacists had the bottom interaction with their patients than did some other group. Today, resulting from this "consumers are buying 25.5 percent of their prescriptions online, opposed to 13.five percent of which are picked up at a local pharmacy" (Johnson 2005).
What has brought so much attention to online pharmacies is that it's possible to acquire just about any drug without having a prescription online. Many of these prescriptions are for legitimate purposes purchased through an online pharmacy since the buyer is too embarrassed to visit the physician or for other reasons such as the unavailability of FDA approved drugs to the consumer. These drugs may include steroids that because of their misuse and being classed as a classed a category three drugs, are seldom prescribed by physicians. These drugs have a useful purpose to those experiencing any wasting disease for example AIDS, they additionally play a role in ant-aging (FDA, 2004).
Today a visit to a doctor will be brief, much of the triage it really is completed by a nurse or a nurse practitioner with the doctor only dropping in for a few minutes, if at all. In several cases the client is seen by a nurse practitioner. One of the arguments against telemedicine or possibly a better term is cyber-medicine, is the fact that the doctor will not have a physical relationship with the patients and so is in no position to make a diagnosis, thereby can not legally prescribe drugs.
Ironically when one compares the work up that one has to proceed click through the following website to consult with an online physicians and compares this to a face to face visit with a brick and mortar doctor, one finds that the online physician, in lots of cases, has a more suitable comprehension of the patient's health condition than does the doctor who meets face to face with the client. In the majority of cases before an on-line a physician prescribes any type of medication they insist on a full blood workup they may also require that one has additional tests performed, for example.
