THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 1, 1996 TAG: 9608290217
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 42 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: To your Health
SOURCE: Jack Dempsey
LENGTH: 77 lines
Imagine how it must feel to vacation in a foreign country and find the insulin for your diabetes has frozen in transit, rendering it useless.
What if you're not only in a foreign country, but on a remote part of a remote island jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean? Compound your problems by adding the idea that the only pharmacy in the area doesn't stock your type of insulin. Are you in deep, deep trouble?
Fortunately, no, said Steve Evans, pharmacist and owner of Beach Pharmacy in Hatteras Village.
When that situation arose this month, Evans called the visitor's physician in Quebec Province, Canada, and received authorization to provide the correct type of insulin for the distressed man.
Grateful and enormously relieved, the traveller continued his vacation safely on Ocracoke Island.
It's all too easy to take the local pharmacist for granted. But when you need them, they're usually ready, willing and able to help.
``I've been a practicing pharmacist since 1975,'' Evans said last week. ``And this is the first time anyone has interviewed me for anything.''
Yet hard, cold numbers tell a compelling story about the importance of pharmacists. The Mayo Clinic's family health guide states, ``On average, seven prescriptions are filled annually for every man, woman, and child in the United States.'' Americans spend $30 billion annually on prescription medication, over-the-counter drugs and related pharmaceutical products - mainly at local pharmacies.
However, people in emergencies need service, not statistics - and service is surprisingly easy to find at Outer Banks pharmacies.
Steve Archbell, pharmacist and owner of Bear Drugs in Kitty Hawk, said it's very common for people to leave prescription medications at home, lose them while on vacation or run out because they forgot to refill prescriptions before they left home.
``We've named Monday call-back-home day,'' Archbell said, ``because that's when the weekly trickle of worried visitors begins.''
He serves between 10 and 20 such visitors during in-season weeks. That translates to more than 1,000 prescription emergencies on the Outer Banks each tourist season. And that excludes the unknown number of visitors who do without medication because they fail to realize local pharmacists can help.
North Carolina pharmacists are allowed to provide a 72-hour supply of most prescription drugs if the visitor has the prescription bottle. If they forgot to bring it or lost it, however, the pharmacist can still call the physician or pharmacist back home for a total refill.
Filling new prescriptions is actually more complex. The prescription medication is entered into the computer along with other medications the person is taking, other illnesses they have and any allergies they have.
The computer identifies any possible drug interactions that may make the person ill. Some drug interactions may prove fatal.
The computer also identifies possible sensitivities the medication may produce. Some antibiotics, for instance, may sensitize persons to sunlight, which is important to visitors who had planned to spend considerable time on the beach.
Counseling has become an increasingly important component of the pharmacist's work. For prescription drugs, potential side reactions are explained as well as the dangers of not following instructions precisely.
Both Evans and Archbell expressed concern about the lack of counseling offered by medical mail-order houses. Although such outfits include printed material with orders and offer a toll-free telephone number for potential inquiries, they cannot provide the same quality service as the give-and-take counseling available in a face-to-face situation.
Additionally, visitors routinely ask pharmacists to explain what the family medical guide advises. Is the para-aminobenzoic acid on the sunscreen label the same as PABA the guide recommends? What is a hydrocortisone cream for sunburn, anyway?
Also, persons with illnesses or injuries regularly inquire about self-treatment products or whether they should see a physician. It's a rare person who hasn't sought counsel from a pharmacist.
Perhaps the pharmacist's most important role is keeping track of the half-million products on the market. The Ebers Papyrus from 16th century B.C. Egypt lists 811 pharmaceuticals in use then. Thirty-six centuries later, the array of available medications is a bit more complex. by CNB