Minor pedestrian versus car accidents and a little bit of German language & medical culture

[greywash]

My setting is present day (2013), Germany (Frankfurt am Main); technically Sherlock fandom but that's largely irrelevant; emergency room/A&E or other walk-in clinic where you might go after an accident. My character is John Watson, so he has a medical background and I'd like him be to some extent self-diagnosing-that part is plot relevant. I

Comments

[lied_ohne_worte]

I can't say anything about the medical details.

As for the painkiller: You wouldn't get a prescription for something like aspirin. Prescriptions are for things you can't buy on your own authority (that is, they're dangerous or can be misused), and they serve as an authorisation for you to buy it, as well as to pass on to the health insurance, which doesn't cover over-the-counter medicine, usually. So if the doctor honestly thinks you'll be all right with aspirin, they'll tell you to take some, and that's it.

Prescriptions aren't transferred electronically from doctor to pharmacy. We have no system for that sort of thing, and I guess it might be a matter of data security/privacy preventing it for a while yet. I've read of US people registering recurring recipes with a pharmacy, and the pharmacy communicating directly with a doctor or something - that does not happen here. A pharmacy is basically a shop, but one that sells some items which need special authorisation. They aren't involved in patients' relationship with their doctor.

If you get a prescription, you're given a piece of paper, and you take that piece of paper to any pharmacy of your choice - nowadays that includes online pharmacies, but they too need the actual recipe before they can send out the restricted medicine. If you're mobile and can be assumed to be able to get to a pharmacy, you'll have to do so, as I don't think hospital pharmacies hand out that sort of thing. And yes, medicine can't be bought in just any store, unless it's something like multivitamins or skin lotions or something that fall under "nutrition supplements" or "cosmetics" rather than medicine. If you buy over-the-counter medicine, the pharmacy workers are still supposed to advise you regarding side-effects etc.

I've never heard any intercom announcement in a hospital here beginning with "may I have your attention please" - I'm not sure on what occasion one would use it, as it would need to be something that concerns all patients, and there only a fire alert comes to mind. Normally they wouldn't want to upset patients with an alarming message of this sort.

On the whole, announcements are quite rare, and I don't know if you can hear them in patient rooms at all. It's been a while since I was in hospital as a patient, but I don't recall any announcements whatsoever, and the same is true for occasional short hospital visits. If you absolutely need an announcement, I'd go with "Doktor [insert last name] zur Notaufnahme" - "Doctor [last name] to the emergency room", perhaps overheard through a half-open room door or something.

[lizzardgirl]

I think I had a doctor once write me a prescription slip for aspirin - but I think it was something like her third day and she didn't want to make a rookie mistake.

[lied_ohne_worte]

So far, I've either gotten the really strong stuff (as a teenager after a foot operation I got something that was somehow related to valium, took it a day, was totally woozy and decided not to take it again when they did the other foot), or no painkillers whatsoever (after wisdom teeth).

[lizzardgirl]

I once started running into things after half a paracetamol pill, so I tried to avoid the heavy duty stuff after that. Luckily (fingers crossed) I haven't had anything that would require heavy dosage yet.

[greywash]

Thank you guys! This clears up a bunch of stuff. :)

[lied_ohne_worte]

One more thing: If you want to get specific regarding payment etc. for medical treatment, you'll need to figure out how the characters will be insured. Some of the information given in comments above, regarding the 5 Euro payment, is for people with public insurance, who don't get to see their bills, but only pay co-pays. People with private insurance get and pay all bills for doctor/hospital/pharmacy themselves, but then pass them to their insurance (and in some cases their employer) and get usually the largest part of the money back.

[elfbert]

Unless they were monumentally stupid/had been kidnapped/had forgotten to renew it in time for their trip, then Sherlock and John would carry their EHIC cards. This is the European insurance card for UK residents. It means (in Germany - it varies country to country) you only have to pay 10% of the cost of prescribed drugs, but with a minimum charge of €5 and a max of €10, I believe. You have to show your card to the hospital/pharmacy though. I assume they take down the details somehow and then charge it back to the UK govt. or some such - no idea how it works, really! Just know it's drummed into us. Although everyone I know still calls it an E111 (pronounced Ee-one-eleven), which is what it used to be called, not and EHIC (pronounced Ee-hick).

[greywash]

I don't think this is going to come up-hilariously, this post is about four times as long as the section of the story involving the hospital-but very good to know, thank you.

[lied_ohne_worte]

Heh, as someone who practically grew up in a pharmacy, I can tell you that, yes, your pharmacist is highly likely to be in connection with your doctors, at least in a smallish town (I grew up in an area with 50,000 inhabitants and about 15 pharmacies, though that was in the days before online pharmacies).

The pharmacist usually does know all the local doctors at least by reputation, and will call them if there are some problems with the prescription slip. (Usually relating to readability, but also if a longterm prescription suddenly changes or other things that might indicate a mistake.) Doctor's will often recommend a particular nearby pharmacist, or even partner with them. Often pharmacies are located on the ground floor of townhouses that have one or several practices on the upper floors. After my father's death closed his practice and severely reduced the economic viability of my mother's pharmacy despite her location directly at the train station, my mother held us over water for a few more years with a standing partnership with one doctor who had cancer patients that needed individualised medication that could easier be shipped as a bulk package to one pharmacy instead of a dozen different ones. Then there's the dermatologist who knew that my mother had the competence and equipment to prepare individualised salves and old, out-of-sale recipes and such from scratch. (Well, technically every pharmacy is obligated by law to have such a lab, but if they don't use it often, the ingredienta get stale and the skills rusty, so...) Some older doctors prescribe medication that's become 'unfashionable' and that the younger ones may not even know about, and then there will usually be only one local pharmacy that has that particular brand in stock, with everyone else telling you that they can order it but you'll have to come back tomorrow. Also, for some things, like insulin and other perishable stuff that needs cooling, it's just easier for the pharmacist to know how many batches will be needed in any given week.
And you can be damn sure that your pharmacist catches on who has a medication addiction and which doctor keeps enabling that habbit.