Son 2Nd Time with Cdiff 10 Months Old

I interned with an investigative journalism news team in college and we did a story on pharmacy errors. The reported rate of errors for an average pharmacy is 2-4%. That means in a pharmacy that dispenses 100 prescriptions a day, 2-4 of them will be wrong. Every. Single. Day.

Luckily most errors are those where something like an antibiotic is dispensed at the wrong dose - say, 1.5 tsp three times a day instead of half a teaspoon three times a day. Luckily, most errors just result in minor discomfort (for antibiotics a high dose is hard on the tummy, exactly what a baby like your son doesn't need!) and not severe or fatal outcomes.

From that story, I learned to check every prescription. When I am at the doctor's office, I write down what they are prescribing, what it should look like, the dose and the frequency and I have them check my notes to make sure I got it right. I do this even when they do electronic presriptions. Then when I go to pick up, I verify the info on the bottle vs. what I wrote down. There was one instance several years ago where what the doc ordered wasn't covered by insurance so the pharmacist called the office and got a substitution, which they filled. It didn't match what I had written down, though, so I called the office to verify the switch. The nurse I spoke to said that they make these changes all the time and that I was literally the only parent who had ever called to question a change. That's scary.

I so hope that you little boy gets well quickly. Definitely make sure that the pharmacy reports the error (I think each state has a different oversight board) and in the future, check every prescription for an extra layer of oversight. We shouldn't have to do that, but it's the one step that we can take to help lessen the chances that our family will be the one getting the bad prescription that day.

First, thank God your son did not have an adverse reaction. Second, you are correct, we are all human and errors occur, so why are you pissed enough to want to hold someone responsible. There is nothing you can do or that the pharmacist can do at this stage of the discovery. What compassion would you like the pharmacist to have, he made an error he can't correct. They are trained to do a job, not to be compassionate, unfortunately that is not something that is taught in med school. You either are or you aren't. All there IS to do now is to start from scratch at the beginning, especially because it is an antibiotic. C diff requires antibiotics. Your son didn't really get screwed out of medicine, as he was taking the wrong dosage to begin with. You just have to start all over again. Hang in there, take a deep breath and begin again.

What is it you want the pharmacist to do? He can't fix it. He can't change what you have to do now to treat your son. Are you venting about the pharmacist or do you have a question about what happens next? Or?

Your son does not need the next 11 days because he received too much the previous days. He wasn't screwed out of anything. He was over treated. I suggest that he had to stop taking it so that his body could adjust. Did his doctor explain what the next step is. Is it possible that the treatment has worked and he won't need any more medicine? Or that you just have to wait and start over? I'd be more concerned about how to treat your son now and not waste my energy on something that cannot be changed.

Report the pharmacist to the state governing board for your state. I would ask that the employer terminate him. They probably won't, but they will understand the seriousness of it. Pharmacist are not doctors but they have a board they report to just like everybody else. That was a MEDICAL ERROR. What if they had given him the wrong medicine entirely?

I am a little disturbed by the fact that some here think she shouldn't be outraged. What if it had been a narcotic or another med entirely? What if the med had cost him his life? Is it then and only when we call folks out on mistakes? Would you feel so understanding if you went in to a hospital for a simple outpatient procedure and ended up dying because of complications? No, we do that NOW so that there will be steps, questions, investigations, to preventing a tragedy happening to someone else. What if it was your child, husband, mother? I highly doubt you would look the other way....

They need to change their protocol at the pharmacy to make sure this doesn't happen again. If you have the money, ask a lawyer to draft a letter to the corporate headquarters. Provide the name of the pharmacist, the name of the medicine, the date and time you took the script in and when you picked it up.

The lawyer will know exactly what to say. He or she will also leave it open-ended enough that if your son DOES have problems because of this, you'll have options. Don't write the letter yourself because they won't pay attention to it if you do.

Dawn