Being Given The Wrong Medication Is Medical Malpractice – Could This Happen To You?

Doctors and other medical professionals are assumed to be the experts when it comes to injuries and illnesses and prescribing the medications that we may need in order to heal. Most of us only have a very basic understanding of what a particular medication may do and we rely on the expertise of medical professionals to determine what we need and how much we should take.

Being prescribed a medication that causes an adverse effect can result in serious illness or injury – even death. So if you believe you have prescribed the wrong medication and suffered loss as a result, a Philadelphia medication error attorney can evaluate your claim and let you know if you can recover from your injuries.

Mistakes Made When Prescribing Medications

There is plenty of room for error in the process that begins with prescribing medication and ends in a patient receiving the medication. Mistakes can and do happen. The following situations can result in damages to those taking prescribed medications.

• The patient prescribed the wrong medicine
• The patient prescribed the wrong dosage of medication
• Medication is not what the label says it is
• The patient has allergies to the medication
• The medication interacts badly with other medications the patient is taking
• Medicine has dangerous side effects that patient was not properly warned about

Persons Injured from Medication Errors

In the US, between 7,000 – 9,000 patients die each year as a result of medication errors. Hundreds of thousands of more people experience some type of adverse reaction – some serious enough to seek medical attention and many just tolerated and never reported.

The most common medication errors occur when the medical provider is prescribing medication. Close to 50% of the errors made are either prescribing the wrong medication or prescribing the wrong dosage of the medication.

Who Is Responsible?

There are a number of people that may be legally responsible for your drug-related injuries. The following people can be held responsible for a medication error.

• Prescribing physician (or other medical professionals that can write prescriptions) – misdiagnosed the problem, prescribed the wrong dose, did not consider patient’s other medications or allergies, sloppy writing or checked the wrong box, failure to advise of side effects
• Nurses or other medical support staff – administers wrong medication or wrong dosage
• Pharmacist – Error in filling a prescription, failure to warn of side effects
• Medical facility or Pharmacy – responsibility comes from being the employer of the medical professionals involved in a medication error
• Drug manufacturer – something in the medication itself as a result of how it was made or something that happened during the process of making it contributed to the injuries

What to Do If You or a Loved One Was Injured Due to a Medication Error

If you have suffered injury or lost a loved one due to a medication error, you can recover from your losses. However, it might not be easy because medical professionals tend to close ranks and want to protect one another when their professional conduct is being challenged. That is why you need an experienced Philadelphia medication error lawyer on your side who knows how to break this ‘code of silence’.

At Soloff & Zervanos, PC, we have helped hundreds of clients recover from injuries they sustained when they received the wrong medication. To find out more about how we can help contact us for a free consultation by clicking here or calling us at 866-597-8572.