Types of Medication Errors

At Christian & Christian Law in Greenville , our attorneys are known for medical malpractice cases. With over 100 years of combined experience in this field, we’ve won numerous cases for victims dealing with the aftermath of medical malpractice, specifically victims and their families dealing with medication errors. Medical malpractice lawsuits are based on a number of actions (or inactions) by the part of a health care professional that boil down to their amount of medical negligence.

Medical negligence can be described as the failure to act by a medical professional when that professional deviates from their standard of care. Essentially, medical malpractice cases hinge on the decided amount of negligence that occurred within the facility or with that professional. Medical negligence doesn’t always end in serious personal injury (or death) to a patient, but you can still win a case based on negligence if the health care professional was in the wrong or did something that, in theory, could have caused additional harm.

When Negligence Becomes Malpractice

Medical negligence can become medical malpractice when the doctor or prescriber of the medication causes or could cause injury to the patient – this can come in the form of making an existing injury worse, unintended complications from medication or negligence that then causes the patient to seek extra care due to the incorrect treatment.

What is a Medication Error?

A medication error occurs when a patient is given medication that is incorrect for their treatment, is the incorrect dosage, or both. This is a big deal in South Carolina as parties from the pharmacy of the prescribing hospital can get in trouble for the medication error.

Prescription drugs are most often at the forefront of medication error cases and can take the form of multiple types of errors. Some of the most common medication errors are:

• giving the wrong drug to the patient
• giving the wrong dosage of the drug
• mislabeling the medication
• prescribing drugs to a patient that they are allergic to
• prescribing medication that interacts negatively with other medications they are currently taking and failing to warn the patient of side effects

Who is Liable for Types of Medication Errors?

Taking prescription drugs is no joke, and in these current times, doctors are supposed to be extra careful on whom they give medication to, how much they prescribe and how often they prescribe it. In South Carolina and many other States, doctors, nurses, hospitals and pharmacies/pharmacy technicians can all be held accountable.

When Can I Sue for Medical Malpractice if Negligence is Found?

If you have had side effects or have been injured due to prescription drug errors, you most likely have been a victim of receiving the wrong prescription or dosage, medical mislabeling or harmful side effects due to poor interactions from other medications or failure to warn for side effects. Sometimes, something as simple as poor handwriting on the RX prescription can lead to a nurse ordering the wrong medication from your pharmacy, which is negligence. Your doctor or nurse should always ask for any current allergies, any current medication and your current dosage of each prescription drug before ordering new medications for any reason.

Do You Need a Medical Negligence Lawyer for Prescription Drug Errors?

If you have been affected by any type of medication error, whether you’ve had minimal side effects or you’ve had a family member who suffered a fatal death, and you’ve suspected you were given incorrect drugs in any way, you need a medical malpractice lawyer. Contact our Greenville SC attorneys for a completely free case review today. We will take your case if we know we’ll win and you won’t owe a penny until we do. We look forward to helping you and your family.

If you have been affected by any type of medication error, contact our experienced attorneys at Christian & Christian today.