Earlier this month in the United Kingdom, an 85-year-old woman died when she took medication that was given to her by her pharmacist that was three times her normal dose. According to a report by one local news source, the woman was prescribed a 25 mg dose of a common…
Earlier last week in Tennessee, a firefighter went to pick up a prescription for an anti-inflammatory medication for shoulder pain and was instead provided Adderall, a medication used to treat the symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder. According to one local news report, the firefighter immediately noticed that his heart started…
Earlier this month in Michigan, a teenager’s family discovered that he had been taking the wrong prescription for almost a whole month after they noticed that his mood was off and his schoolwork declining. According to a report by one local news source, the teen was prescribed medication for his…
In a newly released study by Pediatrics, it is reported that there are an astronomical amount of child medication errors that are occurring outside the hospital setting. According to one article that summarized the report, there are almost 64,000 medication errors annually in the United States involving children under the…
In a frightening case out of British Columbia, a 76-year-old, otherwise healthy woman died when she was prescribed two drugs that were known to have dangerous interactions. According to a report by one local news source, the error slipped past the physician, two pharmacists, and the computer system that tracks…
In a frightening case earlier last month out of New Zealand, a man needed to be hospitalized after he started to cough up blood due to a pharmacist’s error. The pharmacist responsible was actually hired from a temp agency that staffs short-term employees. According to one local news source, a…
Pharmacists are charged with a very important duty in our society: to verify and fill prescriptions issued by physicians and to answer any patient questions that may arise. In addition, pharmacists are a second line of defense against physician error, checking prescriptions against other medications that the patient is taking.…
Earlier this month in Portage, Michigan, one local woman caught on to an error by her pharmacist that may have saved her life. According to a report by a local news source, the woman was provided a prescription by a local Wal-Mart pharmacy that belonged to another patient not once,…
According to a study that was recently conducted in the United Kingdom, pharmacists miss errors in prescriptions in a frightening number of cases. According to a report by the Pharmaceutical Journal, the study results were unveiled at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Annual Conference earlier this month. The study took 103…
Not too long ago, two sons lost their mother during what was supposed to be a routine two-hour surgery to help deliver soothing medication to her aching muscles and bones. According to a report by the Boston Globe, the woman fell last summer and broke several of her vertebrae. Doctors…