When an insurance company or defendant in a personal injury case has questions about the cause or extent of a personal injury client's injuries, they have the right under the law to send the person to the doctor of their choosing for examination. The exam is commonly referred to as an independent medical exam or "IME. The name became popular because the Doctor is supposed to provide an independent opinion about the person's injuries. The truth is there is nothing independent about the opinion. In fact, in an effort to show the clear bias of the opinions, personal injury lawyers often refer to them as defense medical exams.

The bias occurs because the insurance companies search out doctors that they know in advance are more likely to conclude the injuries were not caused by the event claimed by the injured party. In addition, if the doctor sides with the injured person he or she will not get any repeat business. The result is that the overwhelming majority of IME doctors find a way to side with the insurance company. The insurance company then uses the doctors conclusions to deny benefits or convince a jury that a personal injury plaintiff does not deserve compensation. A great article that exposes the bias can be found at the New York Times website.

The number of pharmacy mistakes continues to rise with the ever increasing number of prescriptions filled in the United States each year. Sometimes pharmacy malpractice occurs because the pharmacy has too few qualified employees for the number of prescriptions it is filling. Other times pharmacy negligence occurs because some pharmacists may not be paying attention to what they are doing. It is hard to know whether any real discipline occurs when a pharmacist makes multiple errors because there are really no mandatory error reporting requirements. However, state Pharmacy Boards do receive voluntary complaints from time to time.

It is good to know that at least in Bridgeport Connecticut, the pharmacy Boards investigate the pharmacy mistake complaints that are made. After complaints from three separate customers, the state Department of Consumer Protection began investigating CVS pharmacist Holland K. Nguyen. As a result, she is now facing disciplinary charges for allegedly making pharmacy prescription errors in improperly filling two dozen customers' prescriptions while working at a CVS pharmacy.

According to The Courant, Nguyen gave some customers the wrong drug, gave others the wrong dose of a drug, and dispensed some drugs with improper instructions. For example, state records indicate she allegedly gave one customer 50 times the prescribed dose of the steroid Prednisone; gave another customer Viagra instead of the medication the customer was supposed to receive; gave another customer the blood-pressure drug Quinapril in a 10 mg dose instead of the 40 mg dose that the prescription called for; and gave another patient an antibiotic with directions to take one tablet four times a day when it should have been taken twice a day. These errors and the others occurred between 2005 and 2008 while she was working at a CVS pharmacy on Boston Avenue in Bridgeport. Ngeyen apparently agreed to surrender her pharmacist license in December of 2008.

The question that has to be asked is whether CVS allowed a pharmacist that had made twelve potentially dangerous errors to continue working without any disciplinary measures. The fact that she was still working at the same CVS when the state finally took action suggests CVS did nothing.

Scott Distasio
pharmacy malpractice attorney

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