> Another part is that the name should be a) unique, so you could make it a trademark, b) distinct, so the patient won't tell their other doctor they take a wrong drug (less important now with electronic databases but still important) and c) shouldn't mean anything to the patient, because they aren't the one deciding whether to take it or not - but they will be the ones taking it
a) The official (that is, generic) drug name is guaranteed to be unique, but they cannot be trademarked. That's one part of why drugs are typically marketed under names other than the official name ("Lipitor" is a market name, "atorvastatin" is the actual drug name).
b) Most patients don't know the names of the drugs they are taking, and what they do know are as often as not, not the official name, but a marketing name. Ask any doctor why they ask patients to bring their prescriptions with them to office visits (hint: because in m any cases, it's the only way to get an accurate picture of what a patient is actually taking.)
c) I don't follow this at all. It's a bad think that I know that the three drugs I take are a diuretic, a beta blocker, and an angiotensin receptor blocker?
I think it's interesting to compare drug naming with other medical interventions. We don't call a Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy a "gandalf" or "vartafoprodson." We use medically meaningful names. Why is "losartan" better than "angiotension receptor blocker 95-1" (first ARB approved in 1995)?
I am being regularly asked by my healthcare provider which drugs I take, on each visit's checkin. They'd be happy to have the Rx, but in many cases the patient doesn't even have one - it's buried somewhere "in the system", and if you change providers, you don't get anything from the old one - hopefully the new one knows how to talk to the old one to get the info. So there's nothing to "bring" to the office.
> It's a bad think that I know that the three drugs I take are a diuretic, a beta blocker, and an angiotensin receptor blocker?
No, it's not a bad thing that you know that, it's just about 99.999% of people have no idea what a "beta blocker" is. So for them that information is completely useless, moreover, if they plan to act on it, it may be dangerous, because they may confuse "beta blocker" with some other "blocker" and make some important decision based on that, without understanding the real consequences. If you are knowledgeable enough to know what "beta blocker" is and how it works - sure, it's useful for you, but vast majority of people don't know that and never will.
a) The official (that is, generic) drug name is guaranteed to be unique, but they cannot be trademarked. That's one part of why drugs are typically marketed under names other than the official name ("Lipitor" is a market name, "atorvastatin" is the actual drug name).
b) Most patients don't know the names of the drugs they are taking, and what they do know are as often as not, not the official name, but a marketing name. Ask any doctor why they ask patients to bring their prescriptions with them to office visits (hint: because in m any cases, it's the only way to get an accurate picture of what a patient is actually taking.)
c) I don't follow this at all. It's a bad think that I know that the three drugs I take are a diuretic, a beta blocker, and an angiotensin receptor blocker?
I think it's interesting to compare drug naming with other medical interventions. We don't call a Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy a "gandalf" or "vartafoprodson." We use medically meaningful names. Why is "losartan" better than "angiotension receptor blocker 95-1" (first ARB approved in 1995)?