Medical Error of Incorrectly Prescribed Drugs

In 2014, 26-year-old Khaliah Shaw from Georgia was diagnosed with Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS), a rare skin disorder that is caused by a reaction to medication or incorrect dosage (Pierrotti & Wolfe, 2017). What started out as blisters, led to Shaw’s skin, as she described it, burning from the inside out (Pierrotti & Wolfe, 2017). Moreover, Shaw initially was suffering from depression and was taking medication used to treat epilepsy as well as bipolar disorder (chronic depression), called Lamotrigine, also known as Lamictal.

According to rxlist.com, Lamotrigine is known to cause serious skin rashes and these side effects will appear within 2-8 weeks upon using the medication (Lamictal (Lamotrigine): Uses, Dosage, Side Effects, Interactions, Warning, 2019). Shaw initially visited the doctor for depression in which she was then prescribed the generic version, Lamotrigine. Just two weeks later, she started experiencing the dangerous side effects that would cause her skin to “melt” right off, thus losing large amounts of skin surrounding her face and neck and body.

She had gone under intense treatment in the hospital where she was put in a medically induced coma for five weeks, during that time the skin began to peel off. Updated reports on her condition, as of 2020, state that she is beginning to lose her vision, her sweat glands are now gone and her fingernails will no longer grow back (Jasso, 2020).

She has filed a lawsuit stating that she allegedly received the wrong dosage amount of the medication prescribed to her by the doctor, whose name is not mentioned in the articles regarding her case.

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She states that the pharmacy responsible, which was also not mentioned in the article, did not identify the error on time. The lawsuit against the pharmacy and pharmacists involved is currently still pending. She is represented by her two attorneys, Robert Roll and Trent Speckhals, who specialize in medical error cases. Speckhals states that these types of errors are caused by pharmacists simply not taking the time to fill the right prescription with the correct doses (Jasso, 2020). On the other hand, Shaw has accumulated an overwhelming medical bill that has since then reached up to $3.45 million, which will only continue to increase with the additional amount of care she will receive for her condition.

The FDA reported an increasing amount of errors reported due to the improvements made on the technology used to detect such errors. The numbers went from 16,689 in 2010 to more than 93,930 in 2016, a nearly 463% increase (Pierrotti & Wolfe, 2017). In Shaw’s case, a few precautions that would have helped to prevent this from happening are double-checking to ensure she was going to receive an appropriate amount through proper prescription translation or the doctor reviewing her medical records thoroughly before prescribing the medication. It was not stated in the articles discussed if Shaw had been taking any other medications that could have had an interaction with Lamotrigine. Also, another major explanation for such errors is that pharmacy technicians may lack the proper skills and practice needed to efficiently translate and fill prescriptions. Another possible explanation as to why there is an increase of errors, in general, is that there are many more prescriptions to fill, therefore, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are saturated with an overwhelming amount to fill, which would cause a more rushed process to fulfill orders.

There are many cases like Khaliah Shaw’s that highlight the most common mistake of medication errors that are extremely detrimental to everyone who is involved. Not only does that affect the patient and their family, but the doctors as well, along with pharmacy technicians, and the hospital or pharmacy. They are all at risk of losing business and most importantly their licenses. Therefore, it is imperative that those who are responsible for handling the medications are well trained and have not only shown but proved their competency to work and practice in the fie.