Back in the day, when my father was an intern in the old Bellvue hospital, he was working in the mergency roomand a patient came in with a bad cut. My dad sewed the fellow up, wrote out a perscription for a topical ointment to prevnet infection, handed it to the rather bemused fellow, and said; "Here you go, rub this on the wound twice a day and if it doesn't heal properly in two weeks, come back and see me."
Two weeks later, the fellow shows up with a horribly infected wound, a terribly gummy perscription and looks up at my dad and says, "But Doc, I rubbed this on it twice a day..." Some times you have to ask folks if they heard you right...