Thrush and worms

Here’s a couple really good clinical interventions for you all:
• A script for Canestan Solution written ‘to be used TDS’ for a 8 day old baby. On taking this out to mum I checked how she was going to use it and she had been told it was for oral thrush! So I quickly rang the GP who said he was having a ‘really hectic day’ and got it changed to nystatin suspension. Mum was fine when I explained that one of the pharmacist’s roles is to act as a ‘double-check’ in the system as we dispense the scripts.
• A script for a 3 year old for mebendazole, with a dose that reflected a roundworm infection. So before I gave this out I asked mum if the family had recently been abroad to an exotic location (to which the answer was no) and to then describe the symptoms (which sounded like threadworms to me). So I rang the GP and with his, and the patient’s, agreement I scrapped the script altogether and treated the whole family on the Care of the Chemist scheme for threadworms.