Medication Errors and the Personal Injury Attorney in Phoenix

by | Apr 7, 2014 | Personal Injury

When a health professional makes a medication error, the results can be very serious for the patient. Many patients end up being seriously injured or killed due to these errors. Patients need to be confident that medical professionals are exercising normal due diligence when prescribing and dispensing medications. That is why patients injured due to medical errors should seriously consider hiring a Personal Injury Attorney in Phoenix.

Medication errors can occur in many different ways. For example, a doctor may prescribe a medicine that is inappropriate for the patient due to medication allergies or side effects that can worsen other medical conditions. For example, a patient with a history of epileptic seizures should not be prescribed medications that can cause seizures. There may be errors made in dispensing the medications as well. The pharmacist may put in the wrong pills or pills of the wrong dose. Another common error is when a nurse gives a patient the wrong medication. In most cases involving medication errors, the errors were preventable if health professionals exercised normal due diligence.

There are several things that the Personal Injury Attorney in Phoenix needs to prove in order to win a medical malpractice case involving medication errors. First of all, the medication error must be due to the health professional making an error that other health professionals would not have made. A bad outcome due to a rare side effect that is not predictable will not result in compensation. However, giving the wrong dose is an error that was preventable.

The Personal Injury Attorney also has to prove that the injuries resulted from the medication error rather than some other cause such as the patient’s other medical conditions. This can be very difficult and expensive for plaintiffs to prove. Judges often require that medical malpractice claims are proven with expert medical witnesses. This means hiring doctors to testify in court. This can be very expensive. The insurance company will have doctors that try to undermine the plaintiff’s case. That is why proving that the pharmacist or physician made a preventable mistake is not enough in winning the case.

Although medical malpractice cases involving medication errors are hard to win, plaintiffs rarely have to worry about defendants being unable to pay due to the high limits on medical malpractice policies. Those who have been injured due to medication errors should contact an attorney to find out what options are available. For more detail, contact Law Office of Jay A Bansal.

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