After an illness or an injury, you may get a prescription for a medication that you need to take. In the time following this decision, you could start to notice signs of physical problems that were not there before.
Medication errors that come from medical malpractice can be hard to spot and can have lasting effects on your mind and body. Knowing how they happen can help you take steps to protect yourself.
Overlapping medicines
According to the National Library of Medicine, this problem can occur when a doctor or medical professional prescribes medicine that overlaps negatively with another one you are taking. The doctor may forget to look at your other medicines or may assume incorrect facts about your health.
In some cases, distractions may happen while the doctor is writing. They may also simply choose to not double-check what they wrote, which can lead to more confusion. The wrong interactions between drugs can trigger serious health problems even after just one dosage.
Lack of communication
A patient’s time with a doctor is often limited, which means you may not get the instruction you need or the doctor may not say the name of the drug clearly enough. Whether the doctor is too busy to discuss the information you need to know, or they accidentally tell you the wrong dosage or way to prepare it, many communication problems can happen.
You may not know that a prescription is wrong until after you have already taken multiple doses. Staying aware of how medication errors happen can help you figure out what to do after dealing with medical malpractice.
