Published on 30 July 2026

We’ve all had the experience of a patient describing “the little white tablet I take in the morning” and “the big pink tablet I take at night”—while we haven’t the faintest idea which medicines they are talking about.

Yesterday, a patient told me that he wanted the “four MGee” tablets rather than the “one MGee” tablets I had prescribed. My first assumption was that he was referring to something printed on the tablet itself. It took me a while to realise that he meant the 4mg and 1mg strengths of the same medication.

Moments like these remind me how valuable it is when patients bring their medicines to the consultation.

When I do the occasional home visit, I always ask patients and their carers to gather every medicine they have in the house. More often than not, they arrive in a well-used plastic bag filled with boxes, blister packs and loose sachets. I tip everything out onto the table and, together with the patient, systematically work through each medication.

It is remarkable what you discover.

There are often medicines from both current and previous prescriptions. Sometimes the same drug appears under different trade names, with the patient unaware that they are actually taking duplicate medication. There may be over-the-counter remedies, herbal products, or medicines prescribed by another healthcare provider. Every now and then the patient casually remarks, “Oh, I don’t take that one anymore—it makes me nauseous.”

A “brown bag medication review” can reveal far more than a repeat prescription ever could.

Recently, I saw an elderly lady (which, these days, means only a few years older than me!) who was taking hormone replacement therapy in different doses on alternate days. I needed to know her exact regimen to interpret a recent blood test correctly.

She carefully explained her rather complicated routine of breaking tiny tablets in half because the pharmacy had not supplied enough medication for the month. Despite listening carefully, I struggled to follow the sequence and eventually resorted to drawing it all out on a piece of paper.

Only then did I finally understand exactly what she was taking.

I apologised for being a little slow in grasping her regimen. She smiled and replied, “It comes with age.”

Sometimes our patients remind us that good medicine begins not with prescribing—but with listening carefully enough to understand.