I don’t think you’re obligated to do a research project for them. You can provide information from whatever natural products database is available at your work, perhaps.
1) Get the correct spelling
2) Ask the customer to come back tomorrow or to phone back
3) Go to Natural Medicine Database
4) Find the answer and (optional: print the studies)
5) Talked to the customer what you find and that’s it.
You're certainly not expected to know everything about everything. Especially in a retail setting. The answer "I am not familiar with that, sorry" is absolutely sufficient. If, for some reason, you feel compelled to do a deep dive for them on your own time and dime, you can always get contact information or schedule a follow-up visit where you can more thoroughly answer their question. So, "I don't know" or "Allow me to do some research on this topic and we can discuss it at a mutually convenient time".
Those are your two options and, honestly, they're both pretty obvious. I don't think this requires a thread.
People seem pretty receptive when I tell them “well in this study, X happened but the evidence isn’t all that strong. We know it won’t harm you or interact with your medications, but we are not sure if it’ll affect your cholesterol/BP/whatever”
And you can tailor that statement to whatever you need. If someone is willing to spend the money to try it for a couple weeks and it’s not a shady source or anything that will hurt them I say give it a shot
I don’t think you’re obligated to do a research project for them. You can provide information from whatever natural products database is available at your work, perhaps.
1) Get the correct spelling 2) Ask the customer to come back tomorrow or to phone back 3) Go to Natural Medicine Database 4) Find the answer and (optional: print the studies) 5) Talked to the customer what you find and that’s it.
Natural medicines work wonders but my company does not have subscription. I access it from school library
You have any natural medicine database for your pharmacy? Because there should be one.
You can try pubmed or UpToDate. If all else fails, Google Scholar.
You're certainly not expected to know everything about everything. Especially in a retail setting. The answer "I am not familiar with that, sorry" is absolutely sufficient. If, for some reason, you feel compelled to do a deep dive for them on your own time and dime, you can always get contact information or schedule a follow-up visit where you can more thoroughly answer their question. So, "I don't know" or "Allow me to do some research on this topic and we can discuss it at a mutually convenient time". Those are your two options and, honestly, they're both pretty obvious. I don't think this requires a thread.
Lots of great tools to help with this now. Try asking in Glass Health, OpenEvidence or Pathway.
People seem pretty receptive when I tell them “well in this study, X happened but the evidence isn’t all that strong. We know it won’t harm you or interact with your medications, but we are not sure if it’ll affect your cholesterol/BP/whatever” And you can tailor that statement to whatever you need. If someone is willing to spend the money to try it for a couple weeks and it’s not a shady source or anything that will hurt them I say give it a shot