I lived just around the corner from 1734 Madison in the late 90s. It is physicians’ offices – I used to go there to see my doctor. Based on the architecture I’d guess it was constructed in the 60s, so Dr. Nick might have had a practice in that building. But it seems very unlikely that he would have had a prescription pad with an incorrect zip code.

A. The correct name of Dr is Nichopoulos and not Nichopolous. As Dr had a Greek origin, please note that there is no Greek surname ending -polous. The correct ending is -poulos.

I don’t think a Dr would have his prescription notepad mispelled.

B. There are no Greek physicians with a good handwriting.

ikera
Athens, Greece

Http://ikera.tumblr.com

I have never in my life encountered any doctor who could write prescriptions so legibly.
In fact, most of them have had handwriting like that of a drunken crab.

Seriously. I still don’t understand how pharmacists cope.

The word ” Quaalude ” is a street term, not used in the medical vernacular.
It would be Methaqualone. Way too obvious before the zip code.

More interesting would be to compare the handwriting to that of other prescriptions written by Dr. N.

“Quaalude” was the trade name of methaqualone, so the terminology is correct. Percodan at that time only had one strength, so didn’t need a strength written.

I have seen prescriptions this clearly written…but not very often. Unless I was familiar with the doctor’s writing, I would’ve called to confirm this was not a forgery, even if the combination of drugs and dosing was not insane–which it is. You could trank an elephant with this! As a pharmacist, I really, REALLY hope this was a forgery/joke.

As for how we cope with bad doc writing: most of the time, there’s only so much they CAN say on a prescription. They aren’t writing “War and Peace”, they’ve got a limited vocabulary to work from, and within that, we can usually tell what they’re saying. The worst part is the signature: if they forget to stamp it or have their name printed, we can’t fill it if we don’t know who they are…so if you ever get a prescription from an ER, BE SURE they have a legible doctor name written somewhere on the Rx before you leave.

You have to love a doctor that gives a relatively normal person dilaudid (form of morphine) to take at home. I guess it couldn’t be much worse than the fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches he ate.

Commemorate that milestone now!
Buy your Official Elvis Presley DEA badge wristwatch today!

http://watches.elvispresley.com.au/shop/prod529.htm

..and that wonderful moment itself:

http://wheretruthlies.com/Presidential/elvis-nixon2.jpg

To him, these weren’t drugs. This was medicine, prescribed by a doctor.