{"id":14566,"date":"2018-08-06T19:10:18","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T19:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/ner\/?p=14566"},"modified":"2019-02-19T14:56:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T14:56:00","slug":"where-do-the-french-go-when-seeking-health-medical-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/2018\/08\/06\/where-do-the-french-go-when-seeking-health-medical-information\/","title":{"rendered":"Where do the French Go When Seeking Health and Medical Information?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-14572\" src=\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/ner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2018\/08\/french-pharmacy-pic-300x212.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"343\" height=\"242\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2018\/08\/french-pharmacy-pic-300x212.jpg 300w, https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2018\/08\/french-pharmacy-pic.jpg 634w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 343px) 100vw, 343px\" \/>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-14567\" src=\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/ner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2018\/08\/sting-medlineplus-capture-300x259.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"284\" height=\"245\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2018\/08\/sting-medlineplus-capture-300x259.jpg 300w, https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2018\/08\/sting-medlineplus-capture-768x662.jpg 768w, https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2018\/08\/sting-medlineplus-capture.jpg 965w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 284px) 100vw, 284px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The inside of my elbow swelled up and it was burning and itching. Hardly, a medical emergency, but enough discomfort for me to seek out some treatment information.\u00a0 \u00a0I couldn\u2019t help it, before I knew it, the Education and Outreach Coordinator part of me had a nagging question related to work, even though I was on vacation visiting some French friends in the city of St. Etienne (<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Saint-%C3%89tienne\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Saint-%C3%89tienne,<\/a>\u00a0I had to know, where do the French go when they are looking for health information?<\/p>\n<p>I was just about get onto the MedlinePlus.gov website. Thinking smugly to myself, how clever am I to use this sting experience as way to share my favorite health and medical website MedlinePlus.gov,\u00a0 with my French friends? Before I could even type Insect Bites and Stings in the search box, Jeanne Marie offered to take me to the \u201cChemist\u201d (the French name for \u201cpharmacist.\u201d) Little did I know that my sting would provide me with a lesson (and a blog post!) about the difference between French pharmacies and American pharmacies. \u00a0\u201cWe don\u2019t look for information on the internet because our \u201cchemists\u201d are highly trained to provide medical information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I agreed to visit to the chemist who was located just a few miles away. After asking me a few questions and looking at my arm, the Chemist, went to a nearby shelf and came back with a a tube of hydrocortisone. She instructed, &#8220;Rub this lotion on the sting site 2 times each day.&#8221;\u00a0 I followed her instructions and it took only a couple of hours for the swelling to go down and the itching and burning to stop.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some interesting facts that I learned about pharmacies in France (on my vacation no less!)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>France has about 23,000 pharmacies (to me that seems like a lot of pharmacies since the country of France is about equal in size to Texas.)<\/li>\n<li>There are no pharmacy chains like CVS, Walgreens or RiteAid, only a Chemist can own a pharmacy and ownership is restricted to just 1 pharmacy.<\/li>\n<li>In France, to become a \u201cChemist\u201d one must study for about 6 years. Chemists are able to make up prescriptions and they have a certain degree of medical training. For minor ailments, most people in France ask their Chemist for advice before they seek assistance from their doctor.<\/li>\n<li>At the end of their studies, the title of \u2018Docteur en Pharmacie\u2019 is given to students. The students take an oath called <em>le serment de Galien, <\/em>which is inspired by the Hippocratic Oath.<\/li>\n<li>Shampoo and gum are not available in a French pharmacy, only medicine is sold in a French pharmacy. Conversely, you are not able to purchase medicine in any other place but a pharmacy.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cOver the counter medications\u201d as they are referred to here in the United States, such as aspirin, or ibuprofen, can only be sold by the Chemist, in the pharmacy.<\/li>\n<li>Chemists are also trained to identify certain fungi. Therefore, you can take your mushrooms along to the pharmacy for the Chemist to identify them as poisonous or nonpoisonous!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 &nbsp; The inside of my elbow swelled up and it was burning and itching. Hardly, a medical emergency, but enough discomfort for me to seek out some treatment information.\u00a0 \u00a0I couldn\u2019t&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/2018\/08\/06\/where-do-the-french-go-when-seeking-health-medical-information\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[242,10,13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-nlm_resources","category-patient-engagement","category-public-health-review"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14566"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14972,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14566\/revisions\/14972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}