Word: patient
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...When a patient has any one of a number of infections, his physician may write on a prescription blank: "Tetracycline, 250 mg. #16. Sig. 1 caps, q.i.d." That dosage of 250 milligrams is standard for any adolescent or adult, whether a 100-lb. girl or a 300-lb. man. Equally standard is the one capsule four times a day for about four days...
Such stereotyped prescribing is extremely unsound, says Pharmacologist Sumner Kalman of Stanford University. "There is no average man who always needs a particular dose of this or that drug on a certain daily schedule," Dr. Kalman notes. Even patients who are identical in sex and size do not absorb a drug into the bloodstream at the same rate. Their systems do not metabolize the drug at the same rate. Moreover, their reactions to a drug may range all the way from nil to collapse and sudden death as a result of severe allergic shock. "The fate of a drug...
Across Ethnic Lines. The need for such procedures is being emphasized by a growing body of biochemical knowledge. "As a patient's health changes, or as other drugs are used," says Kalman, "the blood level of an important drug may change." One example is the use of barbiturates in combination with digitalis. If a patient is on digitoxin, one of the digitalis products, and then uses barbiturates for a while, his heart-medicine dosage should be checked, and possibly adjusted, twice. Barbiturates speed up the metabolism of digitalis-type drugs, which are critical within a narrow range. Even...
...Useful Purpose. Exposure to a drug may sensitize a patient and cause a dangerous allergic reaction on the next exposure. But, the California authors complain, it may do no good for the doctor to ask a patient whether he has previously had a reaction to a certain drug. "Patients are commonly unaware of what medication they receive, multiple irrational drug mixtures abound, and memories tend to be much less persistent than antibody-forming capacity." Reaction to penicillin injections cause an estimated 100 deaths annually in the U.S. What is most tragic about these deaths, say Kalman and his colleagues...
This year, the hospital gave the "Harvard volunteers" a building, and let us set up our own ward. As it is nearing its end, a good many of its patients will not be returning to their old wards. There is the woman who just began to confide in others about "her problem," but clings to the idea that she is "not ready for rehabilitation." And then there is the man who couldn't hear (he threw away his hearing aid). No one thought we could do much for him. but after many ping pong matches he began to hear questions...