pharma

Reputable Fort Worth Pharmaceutical Negligence Attorneys

Legal advocacy for patients injured by medication and pharmaceutical mistakes

Medical malpractice can involve things like misdiagnosis, surgical errors, birth injuries, or failure to diagnose an illness or condition. Medical negligence doesn’t always have to take place right in the doctor’s office or in a hospital, however. Many patients suffer injury from the very medication they take to make them better. When this happens due to a medical professional’s error, it’s called pharmaceutical negligence.

Injuries from medication mistakes can range from life-threatening to fatal. The Fort Worth pharmaceutical and medical negligence attorneys at Slack Davis Sanger understand how these injuries affect you and your loved ones – not just today, but for the rest of your life. When a pharmacist or doctor fails to provide or dispense the correct medication and you suffer the consequences, we will work to hold the liable parties accountable, and seek compensation on your behalf.

What are medication errors?

The Pharmacology Education Project (PEP) defines medication errors as “any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional or patient. A prescribing error is a medication error related to an error in prescribing.”

Medication errors can be classified according to the severity of their outcome and how much harm they cause a patient. The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCCMERP) provides a standardized index of errors and outcomes. These include the following categories:

  • Category A: Circumstances or events that have the capacity to cause error
  • Category B: An error occurred but the error did not reach the patient
  • Category C: An error occurred that reached the patient but did not cause patient harm
  • Category D: An error occurred that reached the patient and required monitoring to confirm that it resulted in no harm to the patient and/or required intervention to preclude harm
  • Category E: An error occurred that may have contributed to or resulted in temporary harm to the patient and required intervention
  • Category F: An error occurred that may have contributed to or resulted in temporary harm to the patient and required initial or prolonged hospitalization
  • Category G: An error occurred that may have contributed to or resulted in permanent patient harm
  • Category H: An error occurred that required intervention necessary to sustain life
  • Category I: An error occurred that may have contributed to or resulted in the patient’s death

If you experience an incident of pharmaceutical negligence in Categories E through I, it is imperative you consult with an experienced Fort Worth attorney about your right to file an injury claim.

Examples of Slack Davis Sanger’s successful medication error claims

  • A patient was incorrectly prescribed the antibiotic Levaquin, which is known to cause ruptures of the Achilles tendon which indeed happened to her. We successfully sued the physician who prescribed the drug to her and the pharmacy that filled the prescription.
  • A patient on the blood thinner coumadin was prescribed Bactrim, which led to fatal internal bleeding. We successfully sued both the prescribing physician and the pharmacy on behalf of the family.
  • A patient was prescribed Lamictal to treat a condition for which that drug is not indicated. He developed Stevens-Johnson Syndrome as a result. We successfully sued the dispensing pharmacy, the clinic, and the practitioners who prescribed the drug.

What are some examples of pharmacy negligence?

With adverse drug events and side effects causing nearly 1.5 million emergency room visits and 350,000 hospitalizations a year, medication errors are a public health problem. Patients will continue suffering harm when medical professionals fail to take the time and care to properly write and dispense prescriptions. Unfortunately, medication errors can happen in a wide variety of ways and at any point in the prescribing process.

Some examples of pharmaceutical negligence include:

  • Dispensing the incorrect medication
  • Mixing up prescriptions
  • Dispensing the wrong dosage
  • Errors in compounding
  • Defective and dangerous drugs
  • Failure to note potential interactions or patient drug allergies
  • Failure to advise patient of side effects or other important information
  • Prescribing the incorrect dosage
  • Failure to provide dosage instructions
  • Failure to properly communicate with prescribing physician
  • Drug contamination

At Slack Davis Sanger, we launch an investigation into the cause of your medication injury to find out who or what was responsible, taking advantage of our in-house and external medical malpractice experts.

How do medication errors happen?

Although many pharmacy and prescribing tasks are automated, they still require humans to input information and dispense medication. People make mistakes, and in the medical field, these mistakes can be fatal. Common reasons these errors occur include:

Pharmacy distractions. With all the activity in a pharmacy, the staff is subject to distractions and interruptions while working, which can increase the risk of error while performing their jobs. This can cause mistakes while compounding, counting, or dispensing pills and medications.

Cross-contamination. When a pharmacy fails to practice proper safety and hygiene, medication can become contaminated with germs or even cross-contaminated with other medications. In some cases, toxins can also contaminate medications in drug manufacturing facilities.

Failure to educate. For many reasons – whether they’re ill, running late, or don’t speak the language – patients often don’t discuss drug interactions and side effects with their pharmacists. Medical professionals have a duty to patients to inform them of possible adverse drug effects, proper dosage instructions, and what to do in case of a bad reaction.

Dispensing the incorrect drug. Most pharmacies fill hundreds, or even thousands, of prescriptions a day. One moment of inattention can cause a devastating mistake, like accidentally swapping the prescriptions of two different patients. Drugs with similar looking or sounding names can be easily mixed up as well.

Mistakes in prescription entry. Errors in prescription intake and entry happen when a person makes a mistake transcribing a prescription into a system. Reasons can include illegible handwriting, typing errors, or mistakes with spelling and abbreviations. The NCCMERP provides a list of dangerous medication-related abbreviations.

Can pharmaceutical negligence cause serious injuries?

Yes, it can. Medication errors, depending on the type and the patient’s individual circumstances, can cause devastating consequences, including death. Victims of pharmaceutical negligence may suffer extended hospital stays, increased complications, long recovery time, and temporary or permanent disability. Serious adverse reactions include organ failure, loss of oxygen, seizures, cardiac arrest, birth injuries, coma, chemical-like burns or death.

It is always a tragedy when someone experiences a devastating injury. When that injury is caused by another’s negligence, however, it is simply unacceptable. At Slack Davis Sanger, our goal is holding careless and negligent medical professionals accountable when they cause you or a loved one harm.

What is the value of my Fort Worth medication error case?

Because we treat every case and every client individually, the amount of compensation to which you may be entitled varies according to the circumstances of your case – the severity of your injuries, the extent to which you are likely to recover, and the level of negligence that occurred. No matter what, our experienced litigation attorneys work for the best possible outcome, using our in-house and external medical experts.

We sit down with you and determine just how much your injuries have affected your life, your health, and your livelihood. We fight to secure financial compensation for your medical expenses and bills, your lost wages, and your pain and suffering. In the tragic event you lost a loved one to pharmaceutical negligence, we bring a wrongful death claim on your behalf. We can help.

Compassionate and caring Fort Worth medication error lawyers

At Slack Davis Sanger, our pharmaceutical negligence attorneys put their decades of experience to work protecting victims of careless medication mistakes. If you or a loved one were injured from the mistakes of a pharmacist, doctor, or dangerous drug, let us help seek financial compensation on your behalf.

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100 Lexington Street
Suite 70
Fort Worth, TX 76102

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