Why do national statistics indicate that thousands of people are killed each year due to medication errors in hospitals?  Because they are.  If pharmacists are careful, you might ask, how does this possibly happen?

Well, there are pharmacy techs and pharmacy aids, and there are poorly written prescription orders, and  busy RN’s, and LPN’s.  There are inappropriately registered patients with similar names.  There are emergency room techs or nurses or physicians that sometimes miss or misunderstand what the patient is saying about the drugs they take at home.  There are patients who don’t tell us the entire story, i.e., like the recreational drugs that they take, just for fun, or are clueless about their drug list.  |

The story doesn’t end here.  There are exhausted employees who misread or misinterpret the prescriptions.  Then there are just intellectually challenged employees who don’t bother to pronounce what they read, don’t pick up what was ordered from the drug cart, and don’t check the patient to see if they are giving the correct drug to the correct patient.

Don’t forget the hassled administrator who has to find a way to keep the hospital open and running.  They have a committee that adopts a formulary of permitted drugs for his or her facility based on  price.  Are they always the same drugs that the patient has taken at home?  No.  Are they sometimes-similar yet different drugs?  Yes. Do they interact differently with the patients other drugs?  Sometimes.  Do the patients sneak in their herbal medicines and laxatives and antacids?  Yes.

Do you get the picture?  It is common knowledge that if you take five or more drugs per day the chance that they will interact with each other in your body is 100 percent.

What Can You Do?

For goodness sake, don’t be afraid to ask.  Don’t be afraid to challenge.  Don’t be afraid to question.  In fact, ask, challenge, and question.  You need more people caring for your personal health than your doctor.  You must be a player.  Your family members must be players.  Your loved ones and even your enemies can help.  Don’t just accept everything you hear or see.   Sometimes top notch, seasoned veterans make mistakes, too.  In fact, they all do. Mistakes do happen.

So, ask questions.  Ask for verification.  Ask to speak to a pharmacist.  Ask for an explanation.  Explain that the drug being given to you because of some hospital formulary didn’t work the time you tried it at home, or that it made you sick, or that it was the one that interacted with your fish oil that made you break out in hives.

Challenge and challenge again.

It is, after all, your life.