Pharmaceutical errors and medication errors are actually surprisingly common. Patients often take pills without checking the bottle and label to make sure the right pills are in there, given the fact that experts and professionals are the ones filling their scripts in the first place. When the error is discovered, it might have left you with untreated symptoms or even caused allergic reactions or illness, potentially leading to a lawsuit.
A lawsuit for medication errors might be filed against a doctor or a pharmacist, depending on who made the mistake. Pharmacists are usually supposed to fill a prescription as ordered, not editorialize or make their own medical decisions. This means that if the doctor put in the wrong prescription, mixed up drug names, mixed up dosage amounts, or even mixed up patients, that would be the doctor’s fault. If the prescription was not filled as ordered, the problem is probably the pharmacy’s fault. The same is true if the medication was improperly stored, expired, or somehow tainted or altered while in the pharmacy’s possession; otherwise, other parties could actually be at fault.
For help with your injury case, call The Queenan Law Firm’s Dallas medical malpractice lawyers at (817) 476-1797 today.
Suing Doctors for Prescription Errors in Texas
Doctors are held to certain standards when practicing medicine. Usually, their care must be considered reasonable when compared to what other doctors in the same field treating the same kind of case would do. This determines the “standard of care” in any case. For example, if your doctor decides to prescribe a medication for a different purpose than it is intended, other doctors might agree that that is a common off-label usage, or they might agree that that is wildly unethical – and that kind of determination form the medical community usually dictates whether the doctor’s care was appropriate or not.
When it comes to prescribing medication, the doctor has a few things to consider. First, they should make sure they are prescribing the right medication for the situation, ordering a dosage that makes sense for the patient, and that they are checking for any allergies or known drug interactions with the patient’s other prescriptions. Additionally, they should discuss side effects with the patient and help them to understand whether there might be any serious effects the patient should look for that should make them stop using the drug and talk to their doctor.
When doctors fail to properly research drugs, check dosage amounts, and check for interactions or allergies, patients can face severe reactions. Especially when it comes to bad drug interactions or failing to warn patients about serious side effects, patients might find themselves suddenly passing out behind the wheel of a car or suffering serious physical side effects because of an interaction they were not told about.
This harm is often grounds for our Texas medical malpractice lawyers to bring your case against the doctor, given that these mistakes were the doctor’s mistakes.
Suing Pharmacists and Pharmacies for Medication Errors in Texas
Not every issue with medication is the doctor’s fault, however. Pharmacists are capable of making mistakes in a few areas that could lead to injuries and worsened conditions, especially in the following areas:
Mistakes Filling Prescriptions
If the pharmacy filled your prescription wrong, you might literally have the wrong pills in the bottle. This could lead to something insignificant like getting pills to be swallowed for a child rather than liquid or chewable formulations, but more serious effects can occur with other errors. For example, if the dosage was wrong, you could face worsened effects from your underlying condition if it is too low or severe side effects if the dosage was too high. If the wrong drug was in the bottle, you might not face relief from the symptoms your correct pill should have helped with, and you might face unnecessary side effects from the drug you weren’t supposed to be taking.
If the wrong prescription ended up in the bottle and that medication has negative interactions with your other meds or you are allergic to it, the results can be catastrophic. You could potentially stop getting the benefits of other drugs you take, and an allergic reaction could even send you to the hospital.
Missing Obvious Mistakes
In rare cases, the mistake filling the order could go back to the doctor. Most prescriptions are sent digitally today, but any scripts with handwritten scripts could be misread if the doctor’s handwriting is terrible. Even so, typos in entering the prescription – such as one too many 0s or a decimal place in the wrong place for the dosage – could result in errors that would be the doctor’s fault rather than the pharmacy’s. However, the pharmacy could still be liable if the prescription seems like an obvious mistake and they just filled it as written instead of double checking with the doctor.
It is not typically the pharmacist’s job to second-guess a doctor’s orders, but when it seems like an obvious mistake or a common mix-up, they might have an obligation to go back to the doctor.
Expired and Tainted Medication
Pharmacies store medication to fill prescriptions, and they often have certain amounts of common drugs on hand, getting deliveries for other drugs that might be less common. In any case, drugs have different storage requirements, and pharmacists are responsible for keeping things in good condition.
If the pharmacy let a batch of drugs expire then filled prescriptions with them anyway, they might be less effective. If drugs were stored at the wrong temperature or they were corrupted, adulterated, or tampered with while in the pharmacy’s care, they might lose effectiveness altogether or even become dangerous. Pharmacies could be liable for errors like these.
Other At-Fault Parties for Pharmaceutical Errors in Texas
There may also be other parties you can sue for a problem with a drug. Most commonly, the manufacturer will be the one responsible if a batch of medication was stored improperly at their facilities, if there were problems with refrigeration or temperatures during transit, or if the drug was improperly formulated or adulterated during manufacturing. However, they might partner with third parties for some of these things – like warehousing and transportation – making those contractors liable for the patient’s ultimate injuries.
Call Our Texas Medical Malpractice Lawyers Today
If you suffered injury from a doctor’s or pharmacy’s mistakes, call the Texas medical malpractice lawyers at The Queenan Law Firm at (817) 476-1797.