Dispensing of medication is defined as the supply of pharmaceutical product to an individual patient, his representative or owner of animal in response to a prescription written by a medical practitioner.  Patient counselling by the pharmacists is an integral part of dispensing.

Compounding is the process of extemporaneous preparation of dosage form  on receipt of prescription.Today relatively few prescription involve compounding, but the pharmacists mus still possess the knowledge and skills of compounding that he formerly did so that he can prepare special formulation.The steps of compounding of mediation are as follows :- 1) RECEIVING PRESCRIPTION : Prescription should be received by the pharmacists.Immediately the pharmacists should check patient name, age and whether it is handled by patient in person.While receiving the prescription the pharmacists in no way should facial or verbal expression, express doubts which may shake the faith of the patient in the physician. 2) READING TH PRESCRIPTION : Pharmacists should read the prescription thoroughly in privacy.If necessary, he can consult with another pharmacists or a physician without arousing doubts or fears in the patients mind. Pharmacists should maintain PATIENT MEDICAL RECORD (PMR) ...

The prescription should be written correctly by the medical practitioner,otherwise reading of prescription becomes one of the major jobs of the pharmacist.Most's of the today's prescription are written in English but number of times the spelling mistakes and confusing handwriting are major reasons in the understanding of prescription.Some of the errors in the prescription are as follows : ERRORS IN PRESCRIPTION WRITING :-  A)  Spelling : The availability of lakh of brands in the markets is the main reason due to which medical practitioner are unable to reproduce and write correct name and spelling of the medicine.There are certain medicine whose names are similar in spelling or  pronunciation. E.g.Tab. DULCOLAX (GERMAN REMEDIES) a laxative tablet and Tab. DUOCLOX (FDX) antibacterial tablet. B) Type of dosage forms   : The same drug can be available in tablet, capsule or liquid oral dosage form for adults, drops for pediatrics, gels/ointments for to...