The General Issues Of Prescribing Medication Essay

The purpose of medicine is as contested of a notion as the term patient. While there are certain ends in which it is clear that medicine seeks to achieve, controversy often arises over how medicine chooses to achieve these certain goals. One such controversy is the treatment of patient-symptoms, more specifically, the role of medication in treating patients. The purpose of this essay is not to discuss the general issues of prescribing medication. Rather, the purpose is to question whether it is ethical for clinicians to prescribe placebos in clinical practice. Through defining placebo and placebo effect and presenting a case where a placebo is prescribed, I argue that in limited cases it is ethical for clinicians to prescribe a placebo for a patient. Derived from Latin, the term placebo translates into â€Å"I shall please, future indicative of placere to please† (etymonline.com). Dating back to early 13th Century, the term first appeared in the opening antiphon of Psalms cx iv.9. However, its appearance in medical literature did not occur until 1785 (etymonline.com). Furthermore, it was not until the 1940s, â€Å"with the adoption of [the] double-blind† study that placebos were employed in clinical research (Brody, 1982, 112). In clinical research, placebos are used as an inactive therapy to aid in evaluating whether an experimental drug is effective. In clinical practice, placebos are used as a medical treatment. Now, controversy over placebo-prescribing often stems from theShow MoreRelatedThe Role Of Independent And Non Medical Prescribing1224 Words   |  5 PagesThe Role of Independent and Non-Medical Prescribing: Prescribing is defined and the process involving information gathering, clinical decision making, communication and evaluation which then results in the initiation, continuation or cessation of medication/s. Independent prescribing means that the prescriber takes responsibility for the clinical assessment, diagnosis and management of patients. 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