Advocacy

 

    As I’ve grown up and become more involved in my own healthcare, I have started to realize how important advocating for yourself can be. In the current healthcare system, knowing the right questions to ask, being perseverant, and seeking second opinions can be crucial to receiving the highest quality of care. Being in pharmacy school has allowed me to have a better understanding of my own medical conditions and the medications I am on, so in turn I am able to ask better questions and have more productive discussions about my care during my appointments. This has not always been the case for me and I’m sure is not often the case for a lot of people. Doctors are often short on time and this can lead to biases and assumptions taking the lead and concerns being dismissed. Advocating for yourself in these situations is not always easy. Anxieties and fears can make it harder to voice concerns or ask questions. Language barriers or low health literacy can lead to misunderstandings. This negatively impacts the quality of care that patients are receiving.

This issue occurs in pharmacy as well. Just in the last year, I have caught at least two errors on my prescriptions when picking them up at the pharmacy and have had to advocate for myself to get them corrected. It is wild to me how many people end up taking their medications incorrectly, either because the prescriptions were written poorly or filled wrong. I can imagine that this disproportionately affects people with lower heath literacy or people who don’t speak English as their first language. I had the background knowledge to know that my prescriptions were wrong, but the average person likely doesn’t have that information. This makes it harder for patients to advocate for themselves and receive quality care.

As healthcare professionals, we should work toward lifting some of this burden from patients. Instead of waiting for them to advocate for themselves, we should focus on asking the right questions and gathering the necessary information to make informed decisions about care and address patient concerns.

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