As a pharmacist, you play an important role distributing medications to patients who need them to stay healthy and manage serious medical conditions. Although you are not responsible for the prescribing of these medications, any type of negligence when handling a patient’s medication can result in serious charges.
According to data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, from 2015 to 2016, 45.8% of the U.S. population had used prescription drugs within the past 30 days. Since so many people rely on medications, there may come a time when you face malpractice charges in your role as a pharmacist, and you should understand what happens next.
Examples of pharmacy malpractice
There are many forms of pharmacist malpractice. For example, you may face charges for this if you provided the wrong dosage of a medication, failed to ensure that the patient could use the medications prescribed or did not make sure the patient could take the prescribed medication based on his or her medical history.
Conditions for malpractice charges
Patients must prove you owed them a duty of care before proving that malpractice occurred. For example, the patient must first prove you were the one handling his or her medication before establishing a malpractice claim. Then, the patient must establish that you breached this duty of care by acting negligently.
You could lose your license to practice pharmacy if found guilty of committing malpractice. Other consequences may also apply, depending on the allegations against you and the situation surrounding the alleged negligence.
