Muhammad Abdullah Khan is a pharmacy student in Pakistan.
Walk into most community pharmacies today and you’ll notice something off. The pharmacist who used to remember your name and medication history is gone. The one who caught that dangerous drug interaction last year? Also gone. In their place, a rotating cast of temporary faces, each one just trying to survive the shift.
This isn’t about a labor shortage. We have pharmacists. What we’re losing is something else entirely. Expertise, continuity, …
The algorithm flagged a potential drug interaction in milliseconds. It suggested an optimal dosing regimen based on kidney function, weight, and genetic markers. It even generated patient education materials in the right language and reading level. But the patient sat there, hands trembling, unable to ask the question that mattered most: “Am I going to die?”
That’s where artificial intelligence ends and where health care truly begins.
The seduction of technological solutionism
Health …
Behind every prescription safely dispensed stands a pharmacist making dozens of clinical decisions under mounting pressure. What happens when that pressure becomes unbearable? When the professionals who are the last line of defense against medication harm are pushed to their breaking point, patient safety breaks with them. This crisis is real and it is often invisible.
The invisible epidemic
Surveys and workplace reports repeatedly show that large numbers of pharmacists experience burnout …
Every 24 hours, at least one person dies from a preventable medication error. Every hour, countless others suffer complications that could have been avoided with better systems. Yet despite billions invested in health care technology and training, these numbers are not improving.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: We have been solving the wrong problem.
For decades, health care has treated medication errors like individual failures — a tired nurse, a distracted doctor, a …
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
