Cairo Pharmacists Syndicate Seek Clearer Prescription Standards

The Cairo Pharmacists Syndicate has called for doctors to be required to write clear, legible prescriptions, arguing that unclear handwriting continues to pose risks to patient safety while exposing pharmacists to professional and legal liability.

Dr Mahfouz Ramzy, Head of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Committee and a member of the syndicate's media committee, said the problem extends beyond identifying a medicine's name to deciphering its concentration, dosage and pharmaceutical form, particularly in a market where different medicines can have similar brand names.

According to Ramzy, pharmacists routinely cross-check prescriptions against a patient's diagnosis, age and intended treatment, and may ask patients what their doctor explained during the consultation. When a prescription remains unclear and the prescribing physician cannot be reached, he said the safest approach is to avoid dispensing the medicine and ask the patient to obtain a rewritten prescription.

The syndicate is also calling for broader adoption of electronic prescribing, with clinics and hospitals progressively moving to printed digital prescriptions or systems using QR codes to reduce the risk of medication errors. Ramzy also urged doctors to write the scientific name of medicines alongside clearly stated concentrations, doses and dosage forms, while calling for stricter oversight of brand names that could be confused with one another.

He said handwritten prescriptions are no longer justified given the availability of digital technologies that can connect physicians and pharmacies, arguing that medication safety requires a broader overhaul of prescribing and dispensing practices rather than placing responsibility solely on pharmacists.