If The Pill Is Stinky Will You Take It?
Should any person take a pill that stinks? This was the question or rather the hypothesis recently studied by medical researchers of patients with diabetes regarding a common medication called metformin.
“The drug smells like dirty socks.” some patients say. The stinky med could explain why so many patients stop taking it according to the latest research. Although doctors that I have spoken to and it seems to go along with recent reports is that they were not aware of the problem with their patients. Doctors simply didn’t take this into consideration because of the more common side-effects such as diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, flatulence, distention and abdominal pain. What is even more interesting is that this common ’stink’ is common in the conversations amongst patients out on the Internet.
So why the disconnect? Maybe patients and doctors run out of time during their visits to discuss ’stinky’ medication. Or is it a ‘last on the list’ and not very important considering
other potential issues or challenges. But if a medication stinks so badly that patients are no longer taking it…why don’t they tell their doctors? I have found in my discussions with doctors that patients take themselves off of medications all the time or more commonly take other alternative or supplements without reporting them – not realizing that they interact with their prescribed medications. To me this is a classic disconnect between the patient and doctor. Metformin has been around a long time and seems to be showing great results for many prediabetic patients. So the critical point here is communication.
How does the Internet communication get to the healthcare professional? Wouldn’t it be great to have some kind of blogosphere, ezine, community filter for doctors that could provide a RSS feed for this type of information? Of course, the doctor would have to upload or turn it on…further would have to read it on a regular basis. So time becomes another issue.
Time is an issue for all of us – top if off as a healthcare professional trying to see patients in 8-minute increments – and you have a real time challenge. Being in the business of creating content and delivering content to both professionals and patients, I find this an ongoing challenge. Communication, time and feedback. Our business recognizes implicitly that a one-way communication channel doesn’t work. It is our goal to find new ways to create two-way mechanisms and in addition a feedback cycle. Without knowing that patients are complaining about a stinky pill – there is no way to change it.
What do you think would work for patient and physician communication? How can we solve even the simplest problems – such as a stink pill – without letting the doctors in on the conversation?
