MCI Asks Doctors to Write Prescription in Capital Letters

Doctors have been the butt of handwriting jokes but all that could change thanks to a new directive issued by the Medical Council of India (MCI) The MCI has asked doctors to ensure that they write out the drug names in their prescriptions in capital letters in order to minimize the risk of misunderstanding by pharmacists and the patients taking the wrong medicines.

The move comes following a number of cases where in patients have taken the wrong medicine as the pharmacists are not been able to understand properly what the doctors have written in the prescriptions.

“We made this decision after we received complaints on drugs with similar names being misread. Besides, a single letter change could lead to medical errors. We must ensure that chemists do not have any doubts about what is written on prescriptions. The prescription should be understandable to the pharmacist, so that the same combination of medicine is repeated next time”, MCI president Dr Jayshreeben Mehta said.



Source-Medindia