Is a Prescription Drug Or Medication Error Considered Medical Malpractice?

When we visit a doctor or have a prescription filled at a pharmacy, we automatically trust that these professionals will make sure we get the medicine we need. Unfortunately, sometimes medical and pharmaceutical professionals make medication errors which can lead to serious health complications for their patients. Prescribing a medication should be done with the utmost care, as even a slight error can have potentially deadly consequences. Sadly, prescription errors are some of the most common forms of medical malpractice.

When a patient suffers adverse health effects because of a prescription error, it’s important to determine who was liable for allowing the error to occur. This could be one or more of a number of parties involved in the process of prescribing and distributing the medication. These cases are complex, but an experienced medical malpractice lawyer can make sure you get the support you need.

Who Can Be Held Liable For Medication Errors?

Prescribing and distributing medication to patients involves a chain of several professionals. When an error occurs, it’s a medical malpractice lawyer’s job to determine which of these parties was responsible for causing the error and how their negligence played a role. Depending on the circumstances of the case, any of the following parties could be considered negligent:

• Physicians
• Nurses
• Hospitals
• Pharmacy departments
• Pharmacists
• Pharmaceutical manufacturers

Our medical malpractice lawyers have experience fighting medication error malpractice cases in Philadelphia, Delaware County, Montgomery County, and throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We have the resources and knowledge you need to build a successful lawsuit and get the financial support your family needs.

What Are The Most Common Medication Errors?

Medicine is a complex science, and making sure a patient gets the right dosage of the right medication takes a high degree of care. There are multiple opportunities to make mistakes. Some of the most common examples of medication errors include:

• Giving a patient the wrong medication
• Prescribing the wrong dosage
• Prescribing a medication the patient is allergic to
• Mislabeling the medication
• Prescribing a medication that has a dangerous reaction to other medications the patient is taking
• Failure to warn a patient of side effects

Any of these mistakes have the potential to cause severe health problems, and sometimes, they can even be fatal.

Defective Drugs

In some cases, health complications related to medication may not be due to a prescription error on the part of the doctor or pharmacist. Occasionally, medications hit the market with harmful side effects that have yet to be discovered. It’s only after people start to suffer the consequences of these defective drugs that they’re removed from the market before they can harm others.

If you’ve had health problems related to manufacturing defects, dangerous side effects, or inaccurate marketing of a drug, you could have grounds for a products liability claim against the company. Some drugs which have faced litigation because of dangerous defects include:

• Zofran
• Xarelto
• Risperdal
• Pradaxa

These are just a handful of high-profile cases. Regardless of which medication caused your health complications, our medical malpractice and products liability lawyers can work together to determine who is responsible.

Damages Covered In A Medical Malpractice Lawsuit

If you decide to file a medical malpractice lawsuit, you’ll be eligible to recover both economic and noneconomic damages related to the harm you suffered as a result of a medication error, including:

• Past and future medical bills
• Lost earnings and lost earning capacity
• Pain and suffering
• Loss of consortium

Our medical malpractice lawyers can help you begin taking legal action – just get in touch with us today and tell us more about your story in a free consultation.