An older man came to every appointment with the boxes of medication mixed up. He was illiterate, had diabetes and hypertension, and no matter how many pieces of tape were stuck to the boxes, he could never remember what each one meant or what time he was supposed to take which medication.
At the Condor Basic Health Unit in Belém, Brazil, medical student Manuela Lemos and supervising physician Rayssa Miranda decided to try something different that Tuesday, September 4, 2018. Manuela asked him if she could rewrite his prescription in her own way.
She drew arrows, attached a silver strip of tape with stars for the dawn medication, a yellow one for daytime, a blue one for nighttime, a rainbow one to remind him that lunch and dinner should include vegetables and protein, and fruit stickers for the snack before bed.
When the patient finally understood each schedule, he smiled gratefully. Manuela’s sister uploaded the photo to Twitter without imagining it would go viral. Sometimes the most effective medicine doesn’t come in a pill, but in the way it is explained.