Medical errors can occur in a variety of different scenarios. Sometimes, doctors make mistakes when they diagnose patients. Other times, surgeons can make errors during procedures. Frequently, the recommended course of treatment for a host of different medical concerns involves the administration of prescription medication.
In some scenarios, doctors may need to prescribe narcotic pain relievers. Pain can have a profound effect on the human body, so controlling pain symptoms is often crucial to someone’s recovery from an injury or severe illness. Doctors may prescribe opioid medications for traumatic injuries and many other medical conditions that cause significant pain in patients. They can easily make mistakes during the prescribing or administration process that may constitute medical malpractice and could harm their patients.
Over-prescribing medication
Over-prescribing involves giving a patient more medication than they actually require. In some cases, over-prescribing might mean providing a patient with too high of a dose based on their age, sex and weight. Other times, over-prescribing might look like giving a patient too many pills at once or allowing for too many refills. Access to too much narcotic medication can lead to an overdose in some cases or to a patient developing a substance abuse disorder because of their prescription.
Recommending the wrong medication
Opioids are plentiful and cheap, which means that many doctors turn to them for a variety of different patient concerns. Doing so is not always the best option. There are other, less dangerous pain relief medications available. In some cases, patients may actually require muscle relaxants or a different class of drugs rather than opioids. Physicians can unnecessarily endanger their patients by prescribing them opioids when something less dangerous could also facilitate their recovery.
Failing to monitor the patient
Simply writing a prescription cannot be the end of a physician’s treatment oversight. They need to monitor how the patient reacts to the medication and assist them with ending treatment. Helping a patient taper off of opioid drugs is crucial for the prevention of substance abuse disorders. Too many doctors fail to properly monitor their patients during and after treatment with opioid drugs. They may put those patients at elevated risk of opioid addiction. In scenarios where a physician’s deviation from best practices led to poor patient outcomes, they may have committed medical malpractice.
Patients or their surviving family members may have grounds to take legal action against a doctor who has committed significant prescribing oversights while treating a patient with opioids. Learning about common issues with recommendations for opioids can help people identify medical malpractice after it occurs.