Читать книгу Fundamentals of Pharmacology for Paramedics - Группа авторов - Страница 21

 Signs

 Allergies

 Medication

 Past pertinent history

 Last oral intake

 Events leading to injury

Students of paramedicine are usually familiar with the golden rules of safe administration of medicines, published as 10 golden rules (McGovern, 1992) but also appearing in shortened forms. These rules stipulate that when giving any medication:

1 Give the right drug

2 To the right patient

3 In the right dose

4 Via the right route

5 At the right time

6 Explain about the medication to your patient

7 Take a complete medication history

8 Find out about any allergies

9 Know about potential drug interactions

10 Document each medication administration.

These rules serve as a guide for safe administration of medicines in the field, but they can also be a useful guide to learning pharmacology. Learning what drugs do and how they do it; who they can be given to and when caution should be exercised; what dose ranges they should be used in; by what routes they can be administered and the correct timing of their administration via these routes; what drugs they cannot be combined with and why, are all part of the pharmacology every student of paramedicine must learn and continue to add to as they gain professional experience and as new medicines become available. The need to be a lifelong learner is never more pressing than in the field of clinical pharmacology.

Companies selling medicines are required by law to provide basic information about the medicine for patients before it is made available to them. In the UK, this information is known as the Patient Information Leaflet (PIL), and in Australia it is the Consumer Medicines Information (CMI). The aim of this information is to educate patients about their medicines so that they can ensure they are taking them safely and effectively.

This information includes:

 What the medicine is used to treat (the indications of the medicine)

 Warnings about when the medicine should not be taken (the contraindications of the medicine)

 Warnings about when the medicine should be taken with caution

 Other medicines that should not be combined with the medicine (known as interactions)

 Possible side‐effects (known as adverse effects)

 The dose to take and any special instructions regarding how to take the medicine

 What to do in the case of an overdose of the medicine

 How to store the medicine.

The language used in these documents has been chosen to make the information accessible to any patient, hence the avoidance of too much technical language, but it is nonetheless the same information that health professionals need in order to ensure the safe and effective administration of medicines to their patients.