Patients' Right to Know about the Physicians' Prescription and the Pharmacists' Compounding of Medicines

환자의 알권리 - 의약품의 처방 및 조제와 관련하여 -

  • Published : 2003.06.30

Abstract

This paper is relating to the debates upon the physicians' duty to issue the prescription documents to their patients. The duty should be approached in light of the patients' right to know about the prescription and pharmacy. The Korean Constitution is construed to protect the citizens' right to know as a fundamental right. The Constitution article 10 reads as follows: "All citizens shall be assured of human dignity and worth and have the right to pursue happiness. It is the duty of the State to confirm and guarantee the fundamental and inviolable human rights of individuals." The rights confirmed and guarantee by this article include the patients' right to know about what happens to their body, that is the treatments taken for them and so on. One of the treatments is the prescription and pharmacy. The information is necessary for them to establish their action for the damages in case of their harm resulted in by the negligence in prescription and pharmacy. Now that the prescription is written about by a physician and then the pharmacists compound the prescribed medicines, the patients need to get the documents signed by the pharmacists about the pharmacy. It should be noted that the patients right to know is the right to know and remember. Therefore the patients, who are laymen about the pharmacy, need two prescription documents one of which should be kept by them even after they take the prescribed and compounded medicines for the potential trial.

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