If you are facing an investigation by the Oregon Board of Pharmacy, and need to defend your pharmacist’s license, lawyer Eli Stutsman has experience defending pharmacists before the Board of Pharmacy and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

One example – a common complaint – dispensing errors

Dispensing and/or medication errors are common mistakes prompting complaints to the Oregon Board of Pharmacy. Complaints are most often filed by the patient or the prescribing physician’s office. When the Board receives a complaint, it will open a file, assign a case number, and begin its investigation. You will typically learn of the complaint when you receive a letter from a Board of Pharmacy investigator requesting your written statement‚Äîan explanation of what happened.

Although the literature makes clear that dispensing or medication errors are unavoidable (there are well documented error rates), the Board of Pharmacy will nonetheless impose discipline for dispensing or medication errors. This is true even when the mistake involves a look-alike or sound-alike drug, or when pharmacy workload is a contributing factor. Be forewarned: the Board of Pharmacy does not find “work load” to be a satisfying explanation.

If you are a pharmacist in charge (PIC), the Board of Pharmacy will expect more of you when workload is a contributing factor to a dispensing error. This is because the Board of Pharmacy expects that you will invoke your additional authority as the pharmacist in charge to alleviate workload by increasing pharmacy staffing, even though most would agree that “those days” belong to a bygone era in retail pharmacy.

Get involved at the start of the investigation

For all of the above reasons, using just this one example, if you are being investigated for a dispensing or medication error, you are encouraged to retain a pharmacist’s license lawyer as soon as you learn that a complaint has been filed against you. If you need a lawyer with experience defending a pharmacist’s license, lawyer Eli Stutsman may be able to help. Call 503.274.4048, to learn more about his practice.

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