Personal Injury Law

Prescription Error Made by Amateur Pharmacy Technician Kills Mother of Three

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

The Florida Appeals Court upheld an almost 26 million dollar verdict against a Walgreens Pharmacy after a teenage pharmacy technician improperly filled a prescription and killed a mother of three. The pharmacy technician typed in ?ten milligrams? on the mother?s prescription when she should have typed one milligram. This case draws attention to the very troubling fact that there is no national standard for the training of pharmacy technicians. ABC news points out that in many states pharmacy technicians are not even required to have high school diplomas. Shockingly ?a lot of the people working in the pharmacy have about the same level of training as someone that would be working in fast food," commented a lawyer who handles cases involving prescription errors. In addition, pharmacy technicians are overworked and are not closely supervised by licensed pharmacists.

Recently, Susan Novosad, a medical malpractice attorney at Levin and Perconti, settled a case against a Chicago-area pharmacy. This medical malpractice and negligence case was brought by the son of an 86-year-old man who died as a result of poor direction and instructions with regard to writing, filling and refilling his medication prescription. The mistakes made by the pharmacy were inexcusable and caused Susan?s client to lose his father. Susan hopes to warn others against the dangers of dosing errors in medication administration. If pharmacies do not change their ways, they will continue to kill victims because of negligence.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on March 04, 2010 (boomark / email).