title: Food for thought in an doctors' knowledge of herbal medicines needs to be better.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Patients are increasingly taking herbal supplements for a variety of reasons. This has brought into question doctors knowledge about herbal medicines.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional web-based survey of 84 doctors working within the Department of Medicine at a District General Hospital was carried out looking at doctor's knowledge about herbal medicines.
  
  
  RESULTS
  53 doctors took part. Of these, the majority were trainees in Medicine (42) 79%. Only (15) 28% routinely ask patients about herbal medicine use when taking a drug history. Doctor's knowledge about herbal Medicines was poor.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We need to re-examine our current teaching programmes to ensure that education about common herbal medicines and important sources of information are provided to doctors to improve patient safety.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine Barnet Hospital, Barnet, UK. Clifford.lisk@nhs.net
authors.forename: Ceb
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lisk
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D041743:Herb-Drug Interactions; D029001:Herbal Medicine; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020380:Needs Assessment; D010820:Physicians / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom