Are Mistakes With Prescription Medication Medical Malpractice?

You trust a medical provider to care for you, but more importantly, you trust their judgement to keep you safe where treatments are concerned, right down to whatever type of prescriptions they prescribe. If a doctor prescribes the wrong medication, it can have dangerous consequences for your health. Check out a few situations associated with prescription medications that could result in a medical malpractice claim. 

You've been prescribed a medication that you are allergic to. 

When you start going to any medical practice for care, one of the things that will get asked first off is if you are allergic to any medications. Not only will this be put in your medical records at the office, but the question should also be asked again before prescribing anything. If a doctor gives you a medication that has ingredients in it that you are allergic to, and you did freely share this information with your care provider, you may have reason to file a medical malpractice claim. However, this is only something you can do if you took the medication and suffered some kind of damage because you were allergic. 

You were given a prescription medication with the wrong dosing instructions. 

When a doctor writes a prescription for you, they have to do the calculations to determine what will be the proper dose for your condition and for your body weight. This information gets jotted down on the prescription so the pharmacy knows what to instruct on the medication label when you pick up what is prescribed. If a doctor inadvertently gives you the wrong dosage, sometimes, the pharmacist will catch the mistake. However, if the pharmacy does not catch the mistake and you take the wrong dose and it causes you harm, you may have a medical malpractice claim. 

Your doctor prescribed you a medication that interacts with other medications. 

All of the medications that you are currently taking should be listed in your medical chart, so when a doctor prescribes something new, they should look at what you are already taking and go from there. If the doctor does not take into consideration what you are already taking, they could prescribe something that would cause a dangerous drug interaction. For instance, if you are already taking prescription pain medication and the doctor gives you a new prescription for a similar type of drug, you could be at risk of experiencing an overdose. 

If you feel that you have experienced issues with your prescription, and wish to pursue a medical malpractice lawsuit, call an attorney like Shaevitz Shaevitz & Kotzamanis today.