Pharmacists, like all health care professionals, are bound by responsibility to the best of our ability to ensure the health and safety of every one of our patients. We try to exercise our utmost skill and care which are augmented (hopefully) by external systems to achieve this. However, you are all aware that mistakes do happen. Most of the time these mistakes are small, and a large majority don't even reach the patient. Then there is that small percentage that cause devastating harm.
None of us can know what was going on in Eric Cropp's mind as he checked the calculations of the technician that prepared Emily Jerry's chemotherapy. From the outside looking in, it's easy to say that if we were in the situation we would have caught this error. It appears that there was a perfect storm of circumstances that allowed the error to continue unchecked all the way to the patient. However, does he deserve to be thrown in jail over this mistake that clearly was unintentional?
What are the implications of criminalizing professionals who commit errors?
I think we can all agree that this guy deserved a prison sentence.
15 comments:
It's hard to say that a man that made a mistake (or really did not catch the mistake his technician made) should be thrown in jail. However, there should be certain consequences, not just for him but also for the hospital where he was working. If the hospital had the pharmacy properly staffed then perhaps the pharmacist would not have been as stressed and would have caught the mistake. This blame for this mistake does not rest solely on the pharmacist in my eyes, although some people may argue different because he was the pharmacist and should be held responsible for everything that happens in the pharmacy.
The part in the article that states "after the Emily Jerry incident Eric went on to make other medication errors" and "that being involved in a fatal error in any capacity will surely lead to emotional stress, preoccupation, and distractibility that can lead to additional errors in the immediate aftermath" really bothers me. I felt as if the article was defending his other errors. If he was so tore up that he could not prevent other mistakes then he should not have continued working because he could have ended up killing someone else.
Because Cropp's actions were clearly accidental, what benefit comes from sending him to jail? The argument would say that it will teach him to be more careful in the future, but he lost his pharmacy license so there is no "in the future". I absolutely understand holding him accountable for his actions through monetary penalties or even taking away his license if it is indeed a recklessness issue, but I don't see a reason to jail him; there is no benefit in that.
Also, where should the line be drawn when trusting a technician? You obviously can not stand behind them while they're in the hood making each IV to ensure accuracy. And asking them every step they took after it is made is not efficient either. Mentors, do you have thoughts on this?
I think that the pharmacist that clearly made an honest mistake should not be put in jail. However, I do think that there should be jail sentences for pharmacists who knowingly try to cause harm or do not fill a prescription correctly in order to save money much like Robert Courtney. I do not think that Eric Cropp should be sent to jail, however I think the thought of possibly going to jail could help reduce careless mistakes in the pharmacy. Pharmacists are only human and we will all make a mistake at times, but I feel as if some sort of consequence should be invoked in order to minimize issues.
A lot of factors led to this mistake but in the end if the pharmacist had taken the time to check each the order properly this would not have happened. Yes the hospital should have had a fully staffed team working that day and no, the blame should not rest with the pharmacist alone. But at the end of the day the mistake was still made and someone has to be responsible. Sometimes the punishment does not fit the crime though and each incident should be evaluated to determine the severety of it, to then decide whether or not everything should be taken away or if after some jail time he could practice again, or whatever other options may be.
I feel like with the case of Eric Cropp there really shouldn't have been jail time with his punishment. It seemed to be a pretty easy case to see that his mistake was completely by accident and in no way was he trying to harm someone. Along with the other circumstances to this story he was just in a bad situation where his mistake ended up killing a child. While most pharmacists make mistakes that are insignificant this one happened to cause a death of a patient which is sad but will continue to happen every once and a while.
As a past pharmacy technician in the hospital for several years, the technicians really are trusted greatly because they are the ones making the IV's while the pharmacists just need to see the vial used and the IV bag to check it. They trust the technicians that they used proper sterile technique, that they added the correct amount, and used anything else that might have been required. With that said, maybe stricter training requirements for IV technicians should be implemented because mistakes made with IV's are much harder to catch by pharmacists than mistakes made with dispensing oral forms of medications.
In the second case, I definitely think that he should serve a prison sentence because any health care professional that intentionally does something that could easily lead to the harming of a patient should be put in jail for their crime.
Nathan Batchelder, P1
I do not think Eric Cropp or anyone else in a similar situation such as this should be sent to prison. It was a mistake, but not one of intent. I think losing his pharmaceutical license, undergoing therapy, and a fine would be more than enough punishment. This man is most likely going through enough pain and regret without a prison sentence, therefore I believe it is unnecessary in this case. We are all human and we all make mistakes, regardless of our profession or education. However, I agree that people such as Robert Courtney should serve jail time, and his punishment is just in my eyes. What he did was unacceptable and disgraceful.
Kyle Crisco, P1
Class of 2015
I do think that this mistake could have been caught by checking the tech's supplies before she started preparing the chemotherapy, however I do not think that in this case the pharmacist should be serving jail time over a simple mistake. I would think that this sort of mistake could have been covered by medical malpractice rather than jail time. On the other hand in cases where pharmacists knowingly do not prepare medications correctly, there should be jail time. The standards for pharmacists should be the same as physicians - mistakes are usually dealt with by settlements to the patient's family. Intentionally causing harm to the patient (ala Dr Kevorkian) are dealt with in jail time.
I do not believe that jailing a pharmacist for an unintentional mistake is fair. The blame should not rest solely on Eric Cropp but also the hospital who is at fault for not providing a fully staffed pharmacy. If someone is tired or busy or stressed out, it is much more likely that mistakes will occur in that working environment. When that environment involves direct healthcare with potentially fatal medications if not taken correctly, then properly staffing a pharmacy should be a priority. Even though I do not feel that Eric Cropp deserved jail time, he should face other less severe penalties such as mandatory leave, a fine or a possible revocation of his pharmacy license if these kind of mistakes occurs more than one isolated incident.
For Eric Cropp to go to prison, the punishment does not fit the crime. Yes he made a mistake, and yes someone died as a result. But the mistake wasn't intentional. The hospital should've been held accountable since it was their system that broke down and allowed the mistake to pass. In the case of Courtney, he deserved his jail sentence because he knowingly was under filling prescriptions, and thats where I feel a jail term is warranted.
This subject is not black and white situation. We all realize that we are humans and as humans we will always make mistakes. Things happen all the time and it's sad that such a mistake could send you down a pathway that's devastatingly hard to come back to that same place before the mistake.
I'm still 50/50 about the situation. As pharmacists there will always be a possibility of us making a mistake, but the threat of jail time/ serious consequences should have an effect on pharmacists mindset. This threat will make them double/triple check their work to prevent deadly situations. Each situation should to be judged individually. But I do feel that a honest mistake shouldn't completely destroy a man/woman life- I agree with Kim you can take away his license, fine him, but on top of this should he really have to get jail time as well. When he gets out of jail, I wonder what type of work can he do now that he has a criminal record and his years of school and training means nothing to employers because his license is no longer valid.
I think one of the most disconcerting aspects of the Eric Cropp case is the fact that the details have become so obfuscated. It is extremely difficult to easily obtain unbiased or accurate information about what exactly happened during the course of the "crime", the investigation, and the trial. I believe punishing honest mistakes with jail time will lead to less self-reporting and more cover-ups and therefore is ineffective in rectifying the system based problems that contributed to the mistakes to begin with. How much worse will that impact be if we cannot even be assured of the details that lead to imprisonment?
Jonathan Graham, P1
Although it is difficult to say that someone should go to jail due to a human error I think there need to to be very specific guidelines regarding pharmacy laws. Eric Cropp's situation is unfortunate, however if he were to go to jail for dispensing a medication that was filled incorrectly resulting in the death of the patient so should other pharmacists that commit the same error. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding this mistake the outcome was the death of a patient. Therefore he was justly sent to prison. If this outcome is deemed too severe, then the law governing pharmacy practice should be changed. However it is important that the laws of pharmacy practice are equally applied to all pharmacists and that every pharmacist who breaks the law receives the same punishment. I think it is more unfair for pharmacists to receive different punishments for the same offense than for a pharmacist to be sent to jail for accidentally killing a patient.
I'm having a hard time understanding why jail time was enforced on this pharmacist for an honest mistake that was not intentionally committed. Accidental deaths occur outside of the healthcare realm and rarely result in jail sentences. Automobile accidents come to my mind immediately as an example of accidental deaths occuring due directly to the actions or inactions of other drivers and jail time is usually not involved. In my personal opinion, this pharmacist did make an error that resulted horribly in the death of a child, but it was unintentional and therefore did not warrant a jail sentence.
Should the pharmacist that made a mistake in checking be put in jail? Yes, I think so...even if it's not for a long sentence. By putting your license on the wall, you agree to be responsible for every correctly filled medication and every incorrectly filled medication that comes and goes from your pharmacy. It's part of the job responsibility and part of what you agree to when you make that much money.
When it comes to errors in the medical setting, someone is always held accountable. Physicians and other professionals frequently pay substantial sums of money for insurance that covers incidents of malpractice and other actions for which they are held liable. I feel that anyone responsible for an accident in a medical setting should be held accountable for any negligence on their part that led to the misstep, including pharmacists, other professionals, or any employee. Whether or not this negligence is worthy of jail time should be decided during a hearing or some sort of judicial process.
Pharmacists are paid to be experts of medicine, and this role renders them responsible for the medicine that is dispensed under their watch. Although it is likely impossible for every step of every process that occurs in a pharmacy to be monitored by a pharmacist, quality control and quality assurance are their responsibility. Again, proper investigation of each incident is necessary; a pharmacist may not be responsible for some mistakes. If the responsibility falls onto, say, a tech, some may find it harder to blame them because they are not the professional who ultimately signed off for the medication to be dispensed. However, I think this suggests that they should not have been responsible for carrying out the process that led to the error in the first place. That would mean these tasks should be left to the higher paid professionals (who could be held accountable) which would in turn lead to higher costs. Higher costs are likely to lead to fewer patients receiving the care they need. There are issues either way—rare mistakes or even rarer mistakes and higher costs. To me, the best thing to do is keep things how they are, and when mistakes do occur, penalize those who were directly responsible and explore ways to prevent a similar incident from occurring again. If it turns out that most occurrences are due to the actions of a lesser-trained individual, perhaps altering the process would be beneficial even if it led to higher costs.
Ryan Neal, P1
Class of 2015
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