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What are some causes of prescription medication errors?

A common way for a doctor to provide their patient with a means to remedying a physical illness or injury is to prescribe the patient a medication. Medicines can come in variety of forms, such as liquids or capsules, tablets or ointments. While some San Diego health care providers may have access to such medicines in house, others must write their patients' prescriptions so that they may obtain their medications from a pharmacy.

Though prescription and over-the-counter medications often give patients a chance to experience relief from their ailments a number of individuals suffer harm when errors are made in the process of choosing drugs for their treatment. This post will touch on some of the ways that medication errors happen, what steps can be taken to reduce such errors, and when a patient may have legal recourse after a medication error causes them harm.

Medication errors often happen when doctors and health care providers fail to solicit important information from the individuals that they treat. For example, a health care provider may fail to ask a patient if they are taking any other drugs and therefore may prescribe a patient a medication that could have serious drug interactions with medicines they are already taking. Additionally, not checking for allergies can result in a doctor prescribing a patient a medication that could potentially put them at risk of a serious allergic reaction.

Patients also suffer from medication errors when they are not properly informed of how their drugs should be taken. If a patient takes pills too close together or in conjunction with foods or drinks that could impact their efficacy then they may suffer prolonged harm from the mistakes. By talking to patients and providing them with drug and prescription counseling many individuals can be protected from serious harm through medication errors.

Unfortunately not all people have the important drug-related conversations with their doctors that can stop them from becoming victims of medication errors. When a doctor's failure to provide their patient with reasonable care results in harm or a pharmacist fails in their duty to a person to whom they provide medications then that victim may have the right to sue for damages based on the loses they sustained from mistakes made in their medications.

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