Medical malpractice can occur at any stage of the treatment process. In some cases, doctors make diagnostic mistakes. Other times, errors occur when providing treatment.
Medication errors are also somewhat common. While people might assume that a medication error is automatically the fault of a pharmacist, that is not necessarily true. Physicians are the ones who prescribe medications, and they can make mistakes that have significant implications for their patients.
A failure to identify a potential drug interaction is a common prescribing error that can have devastating consequences for a patient.
What is a drug interaction?
The different compounds used to make medications can potentially affect one another. Drug interactions fall into several categories. Some drugs negate other medications. Taking birth control and certain types of antibiotics at the same time could lead to birth control failure.
Other drugs have a synergistic effect, meaning they amplify one another’s impact on the human body. Drug interactions can also cause toxicity and otherwise rare side effects when taking a medication.
Physicians should generally review a patient’s medical records carefully before prescribing drugs. They should verify what medications the patient currently takes and explore whether a specific prescription is actually appropriate.
In some cases, doctors may fail to notice drug interactions and may prescribe a drug that harms a patient. In such scenarios, the patient could theoretically have grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit. Another physician could easily identify the risk that the combination of the two drugs created, making the mistake a preventable, negligent error.
Connecting poor medical outcomes to preventable medical errors can help people hold medical professionals accountable. Medical malpractice lawsuits can provide financial relief for increased medical costs, lost wages and other economic consequences of medical mistakes.