Posted On: October 26, 2007, 2:05 pm CDT

Posted By: SFOInsuranceLady

I am going to play devil's advocate here...since the victim was a high school wrestling coach, why wasn't he more proactive with his health and well being? Why didn't he question what the doctor was prescribing him? I know that everyone would like to place all their faith in their doctors..pharmacisits, too. I went to Walgreens once for a refill on my perscription. I realized that it was not the same size & color (No, it was NOT a generic drug and not a different generic house). I went back to the pharmacy to verify my perscription and lo & behold, I was given someone else's perscription. What happened? "Sorry, ma'am.....we will fix this for you right away" I said "Sorry, sir....you just lost my business" and I haven't been back since.
My doctor uses one of those "PDA" thingys that show the drug interactions - he has been using one for over 5 years or so..they are as common as a cell phone. I don't know why more doctors don't use them.
On another note, the pharmacist should have known about drug interactions WITHOUT the benefit of a MERK index. They do go to school for years, don't they? What happened to using texts? Too slow??? Too bad!! For gosh sakes, taking methadone alone is "cause for alarm" and mixing it with another drug? The pharmacy is always quick to let us know on the label what not to take with the medication, etc.... because of drug interaction (food, OTC meds, etc...).
My sister, a senior marketing rep. for a large pharmeceutical company says that pharmacists are the ones who are most knowledgeable (or at least should be) when it comes to various drugs and interactions. I agree that both the doctor and the pharmacist share the resonsibility in this case, as well as the victim. I do wonder, though, how much of these meds did he take? Was he following the directions? Or did he take too much of both? Are the meds themselves lethal while taken together?
Evidently the jury wasn't convinced....I would like to have sat in on this one!!