For any visit to the healthcare system, the chances of medication prescription are very high. During a patient’s drug prescription, there are some vital factors to consider: health history and physical examination of the patient (Shanthanna et al., 2020). A healthcare provider should perform the prescriptions based on a patient’s diagnosis and understand the quality a patient should have according to the health history and the physical examination. Drug administration error causes some fatal medical accidents resulting in patient death. To minimize the occurrence of such incidences and other medical errors through a reporting system, policies and legal frameworks exist for the purpose. This essay will explore the ethical and legal implications on the stakeholders, strategies addressing disclosure and nondisclosure, strategies to guide one during decision-making, and lastly, look at the process of writing prescriptions.
Prescribers occupy the first position in the chain of events involving the administration of medication prescribed according to the standard of an elderly patient, and the mistake begins with the prescriber, where it is ethically and legally gratuitous. Firstly, the prescriber fully understands that the patient is a child, and prescribing drugs for a child according to the standard elderly patient place the child at risk of overdoes and exposes the patient to a legal trial. Secondly, the pharmacist is also accountable for compounding the prescriber’s mistake, as the pharmacist should be interested in the patient receiving the medications (Beer et al., 2021). Questioning and authenticating the patient’s demographic features, including age, is crucial before prescribing drugs. The patient and the family have not worked against any ethical or legal principle as they trust their physicians and take medication believing the physician is accurate. For them not being professionals, the prescriber and the pharmacists are ethically and legally guilty of the wrong prescription.
Order this paper