It’s essential to get the dosage of a chemotherapy treatment right. There is a fine line between providing a patient with enough chemotherapy to treat his cancer effectively and giving him so much chemotherapy that his life is at risk of being poisoned.
Everyone on a patient’s medical team must use reasonable care to make sure that this line is not crossed. Everyone has an important role to play to keep the patient safe from a chemotherapy overdose injury. However, as the leader of the patient’s medical care team, the oncologist is in a unique position to prevent chemo overdoses.
5 Ways an Oncologist Can Prevent Chemo Overdoses
An oncologist can prevent his or her own mistakes and reduce the likelihood of errors by the pharmacy, nurses, and others on a patient’s medical team by:
- Setting error prevention as a top priority. The oncologist can be a role model who demonstrates that error prevention is critical.
- Being accurate and clear in chemotherapy prescriptions. This will reduce the likelihood of an error by the pharmacy or person administering the chemotherapy.
- Encouraging training. Allowing people on the oncology team to have adequate time for safety training can prevent dangerous overdose accidents.
- Being vigilant about patient identification. Oncologists should always make sure that they are providing the right treatment to the right patient.
- Double-checking prescriptions filled by a pharmacy. This can prevent a pharmacy error from harming a patient.
Together, these steps can help prevent chemotherapy overdose injuries and deaths.
What to Do If Your Oncologist Caused Your Chemo Overdose
Sometimes, oncologists make mistakes, and those mistakes result in dangerous chemotherapy overdoses. If you think an oncologist caused your chemo overdose injury or your loved one’s chemo overdose death, we encourage you to contact Gray and White Law today. Our experienced chemo injury lawyers and our staff nurse will find out exactly what happened, and if your oncologist was negligent, we will advise you of your legal rights.
You can successfully pursue a case against a negligent oncologist for a chemotherapy overdose injury. Let us help you get the fair recovery you deserve for your past and future medical costs, lost income, out-of-pocket costs, pain, suffering, and other damages. Fill out our online contact form or start a live chat with us now to learn more.