Deprescribing makes me weep

When I see an article headed “deprescribing,”1 I almost weep. After researching patients and their medicines for three decades,23456 I despair a term that is like describing football as about the ball rather than the game.Deprescribing is all the rage, but using the term to describe a clinical process misses the point. Medication review is more than stopping the odd pill. Clinicians must focus on and listen to the person. Review might involve starting a drug, checking concordance, altering dosing, or clinical monitoring. It should not be judged by reduction in pills, or cost, but by the patient’s wellbeing.When my colleagues and I began our research, we debated what to call it. We considered drug review, treatment review, and medicine audit. But we settled on “clinical medication review” because it focused on the patient.This is more than semantics. Pharmacists are trained in medicines, pharmacology, and therapeutics. But in a clinical…
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