Personal Injury Lawyer

If you are hospitalized for an illness or after an accident, you rely on competent medical care to overcome the symptoms and help you recover. Various treatments may be necessary, including surgery. The doctor may also prescribe medication to relieve pain and clear up the condition. You may take this in the hospital and after you are released and go home. While there is a risk of experiencing side effects with any drug, you should expect the doctors and nurses to prescribe and administer the right one. If you do not receive the correct medication, and it has adverse consequences, you may have grounds to file a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Suing the Nurse

If you receive the wrong medication, the nurse could be at fault. This can happen if the nurse incorrectly read your chart or misinterpreted the doctor’s instructions. The nurse may also have given your medication to someone else and gave you the other patients. Other examples could include giving you the wrong dosage, or in extreme cases, deliberately giving you the wrong drug. If you suspect any of these factors to be at play, your medical malpractice attorney will examine the facts of your case and find evidence to determine who was at fault.

Suing the Doctor

Taking the wrong medication may not be the nurse’s fault in any way. In these situations, it can be the doctor who gave the wrong order and prescribed the wrong medication for your condition. Despite the doctor’s training and knowledge, he or she may have made a mistake or an error of poor judgment or diagnosis. This oversight could have severe consequences. Your lawsuit could hold the doctor accountable and seek damages for how the mistake physically, emotionally and financially impacted you.

Suing the Pharmacist

In the hospital, the doctor may write a prescription for you to either pick up from a pharmacy on your way home or for the hospital pharmacy to bring up to your room while you’re there. You expect the medication to effectively treat your condition. At the very least, you don’t anticipate that it will have an adverse effect on you. The doctor may have written the prescription accurately, but it’s possible for the pharmacist to read it wrong. You could sue the pharmacist for instructing you to take the wrong dosage or for giving you an entirely different medication.

If you receive the wrong drug, different parties may be at fault. Your personal injury lawyer in Salt Lake City, UT can help you sue the right person for damages.

Thanks to Rasmussen & Miner for their insight into medical malpractice and taking the wrong drug.