Unethical or Compliant?

Something has been eating at me for awhile. Being closely monitored by physicians throughout my life has blindsighted me in a behavior a few of have conducted. It's horrible that I knew it wasn't right at a young age and I didn't say anything.

I'm talking about overprescribing. Maybe I felt like I didn't have a say in it since I was a minor. I remember having boxes full of cough syrup in the closet, saved for "an emergency," when I was a child. And it was the narcotics, not the over-the-counter stuff. I know my family members aren't drug addicts. We're Asian and we wanted to save money. Plus, I was a kid that got sick every other week. My pediatrician told me there wasn't a point of going to the doctor just for another refill when I can get it all during one appointment. However, it's not really saving money when we ended up throwing it away because the bottles expired. Worse of all, my pharmacy didn't do anything to stop it.

I'm going into a profession where this stuff can't be overlooked. I feel guilty for not staying "no" to my doctors when they told me they'll write for "3 x daily" instead of "once daily." It's not just the doctors either. There was at least one event during one of my hospital stays when a nurse did this (again, I was so naive then). Maybe it was done because they knew the amount was a little over but it wasn't enough to cause a mishap if misused. Maybe it was done because they wanted to make the patient happy. I'm not educated enough to make that call. However, I've had this feeling of knowing that it was wrong for a very long time. At least this guilt will mean that I won't make the same mistake with my patients.