Medical malpractice can take many different forms. While surgical mistakes are often far more dramatic than medication errors, those errors are a very common and dangerous form of medical malpractice.
Mistakes with prescription drugs could have a number of very dangerous effects for the patient involved. The following three examples are some of the most dangerous types of medication mistakes and their potential consequences.
Giving the wrong dose or the wrong drug could interrupt a treatment
Some kinds of treatments require that a patient accumulate a certain amount of a drug in their bloodstream. A mistake with dosing or administration could very easily mean that a patient does not reach the necessary saturation levels of a drug and therefore doesn’t optimally respond to treatment.
Getting the wrong drug could cause a dangerous interaction
Different medications respond to one another in potentially dangerous ways. One drug could negate another or increase its effect on the human body. It’s also possible for a combination of two drugs to create a completely different set of side effects than either drug would on its own.
Medication mistakes could cause an allergic reaction
If you receive a drug that you weren’t supposed to, it could be a drug to which you have an adverse response. Allergic reactions to medications can cause severe and sometimes even fatal responses in patients.
If you or someone you love suffered a negative reaction due to a medication mistake, it’s possible that you may have grounds to pursue a medical malpractice claim against the facility where the error occurred and/or the professional who made the error.