Medical Malpractice

• Dilantin overdose kills patient

  Barry Doyle | January 30, 2007 10:18 PM | 0 CommentsCook County, IL

  A Florida woman died recently of a massive overdose of dilantin while she was hospitalized. The attending physician ordered 800 milligrams of the drug, but a nurse gave her 8000 milligrams instead. Two to five grams is considered a fatal dosage.Heart failure was a cause of the patient's death. According to the Institute of Medicine, this was one of the estimated 400,000 patient deaths...

• Hospital sued for medication error

  Barry Doyle | June 13, 2007 2:30 PM | 0 CommentsCook County, IL

  A Missouri hospital has been sued by the parents of one of its patients after the 8-year old girl received the wrong medication. The girl had been prescribed israpidine but was given risperdal instead.The girl suffered brain damage and kidney damage and will eventually require a kidney transplant."Sound-alike" medications cause the potential for medication errors. This arises from the custom...

• Judge rules medication errors caused by workload

  Barry Doyle | June 02, 2007 9:52 AM | 0 CommentsCook County, IL

  At a recent administrative law hearing for unemployment benefits, a judge ruled that a nurse's discharge was not for cause -- even though she made many errors in the care of patients under her charge -- because the errors were the result of the multiple responsibilities that had been placed on the nurse. Therefore, the judge awrded unemployment benefits that the hospital had been contesting.The...

• Mother Sues After Four-Month Old Died From Cough Medicine

  Jenny Albano | November 15, 2007 4:49 PM | 0 CommentsCook County, IL

  Dimitria Alvarez's four-month old son died from taking over-the-counter cough and cold medicines on Oct. 8, 2001, and she has since sued the two sued two distributors of the drugs, claiming they should have known the dangers of the main ingredient and cautioned consumers.The lawsuit filed Wednesday is one of the first since Federal Drug Administration hearings last month where health experts...

• Medication error kills cancer patient

  Barry Doyle | December 30, 2006 11:00 AM | 0 CommentsCook County, IL

  A cancer patient died after being given 10 times the dose of chemotherapy medication ordered by his doctor. The patient was to receive 50 mg of the medication ordered by his doctor, but was instead given a 500 mg dose. Four days later, the patient died. There were a number of allegations that the hospital staff tried to cover up the error.Fortunately, the hospital disclosed the error to the...

• Medication error kills patient

  Barry Doyle | May 21, 2007 8:00 AM | 0 CommentsCook County, IL

  A Montana nurse admitted to a coroner's inquest that she adminstered a wrong medication to a patient who died shortly after receiving the drug. The patient came to trhe emergency room of the hospital with difficulty breathing. The doctor ordered lasix, a diuretic, to help draw out fluid that may have been contributing the respiratory problems.Instead of taking the lasix from the pharmacy, she...

• Drug mixing error kills three

  Barry Doyle | May 01, 2007 9:00 AM | 0 CommentsCook County, IL

  An employee in a drug compounding pharmacy who was mixing a medication made an error which resulted in a drug being sent to a clinic in a form which was 10 times more potent than intended. The medication was called colchicine, which is normally used to treat gout. It was being used in the clinic to treat back pain, which is off-lbael use of the drug. The way that the medication works is that...

• Potassium overdose kills patient

  Barry Doyle | April 24, 2007 9:00 AM | 0 CommentsCook County, IL

  A Philadelphia family has filed suit against a local hospital after their father died following heart surgery. Two hours after having bypass surgery, the man had a fatal heart attack. The man's daughter, a doctor, reviewed his chart and saw that he was given an excessive amount of potassium, and she believes that this led to his death.Nurses are taught that they need to check their "R's"...

• Medication dispensing errors in Texas

  Barry Doyle | May 25, 2007 8:00 AM | 0 CommentsCook County, IL

  A Houston TV station ran a segement recently on the occurrence of medication dispensing errors at local pharmacies, and the apparently lax discipline of pharamcists who make dispensing errors.In one instance, a cancer patient was prescribed medication to be taken four time per week, but was given instructions by the pharamcist to take four times daily. The cancer patient suffered permanent...

• Misfill leads to stroke and death

  Barry Doyle | April 03, 2007 8:17 AM | 0 CommentsCook County, IL

  A teenage pharmacy technician filled a prescription with 10 times the dose of coumadin a customer was supposed to receive. The pharmacist on duty, charged with checking the work of the technician, failed to catch the error and dispensed the prescription to the customer.The customer suffered a massive stroke due to the overdose of coumadin. She had been suffering from Stage II breast cancer,...