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Negligence in Pharmacy Practice

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Negligence in Pharmacy Practice Negligence, according to Fremgen (2009), occurs when a person either performs or fails to perform an action that a reasonable person would or would not have committed in a similar situation. Most of the time medical professionals will have your best interests at heart, and will do their best to take care of you as much as medically possible. However, there are a few cases where medical professionals make mistakes, and unfortunately the patient has to pay for it. In today’s pharmacies, pharmacists work in a very fast paced, demanding environment, dispensing medications to patients in need. A pharmacist’s most common errors are in three categories: inappropriate dosing, prescribing the wrong medication, and failure to monitor side effects. (“U.s. pharmacist continuing,” 01 1). This paper will address these common errors as well as the methods to prevent these errors.
Inappropriate Dosing Common inappropriate dosing errors include, prescribing medications to patients who are allergic, and prescribing inappropriate dosage forms. (“U.s. pharmacist continuing,” 01 1). Every day, pharmacists count, pour and hand patients their medication, medication that isn’t always right. Medical mistakes, according to Leamy (2009), are the eighth most common cause of death in the United States—ahead of car crashes, breast cancer and AIDS. (Leamy, 2009). Also, if the medication isn’t right, this could lead to the wrong informational forms to be given to the patient that alerts them to certain risks of the medication, resulting in possibly harming them. Inappropriate dosing errors are common; however, there are ways to prevent these errors.
Methods to Prevent Inappropriate Dosing Errors According to Leamy (2009), there are some things that you can do to prevent medication mistakes. They are: * Know the size, shape, color and strength of any

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