The Duty and Civil Liability of Pharmacist
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Liu, Yu-Chen
Abstract
In the medical service process, “Pharmacist” is responsible for dispensing prescriptions. Pharmacist plays an important role as a bridge between physicians and patients, and also patients’ access to pharmaceuticals. However, due to our medical system and people’s traditional point of view, they mostly regard pharmacist as a “machine” to package drugs. Therefore, no one pays much attention to the duty and civil liability of pharmacists. However, the development of “Separation of Dispensing Practice from Medical Practice Policy” enhances the importance role of a pharmacist. For this reason, it is necessary to find out the role and responsibilities of pharmacists, and concretize their duty and civil liability.
This paper begins with the definition of "pharmaceutical services", and a brief description of Taiwan’s medical system. Then, it lays out the “legal relationship between pharmacist and other medical participants of dispensing prescriptions. This paper also discusses the Contractual Liabilities and Tortious Liabilities of pharmacists, and concludes that it should make no difference to the pharmacists’ duty.
This paper analyzes pharmacists’ duty from case studies in the US and Japan to understand the duty of care within the pharmacist dispensing process, and concludes that a pharmacist should follow seven duties: when the pharmacist dispenses drug by prescription, there are three duties to assure the accuracy and appropriateness: ” duty to confirm the prescription when s/he receives it”, “duty to access medication’s appropriation”, and “duty to instruct patients” ; when the pharmacist does not distribute the drugs by the prescription, he violate the “can not dispense without prescription” duty and “no dispensing errors” duty; In addition, a pharmacist is also responsible for “dispense by himself” and “confidentiality “.
When a pharmacist violates the duties above, s/he also violates the civil liabilities of a pharmacist. Due to the characteristic of “pharmaceutical services,” this paper discuses not only “dispensing errors”, but also “product defects”. For the former, this paper argues that a pharmacist should possess a “reasonable man” standard. For the latter, this paper argues that drug manufacturers and drug dealers should be subjected to the Consumer Protection Law Article 7 and Article 8.
The purpose of this paper is mainly to raise the awareness of the legal issues associated with pharmacists. Although the importance of this issue is not high today, from the observation of the US and Japan case, there is no doubt that pharmacists’ liability will become an important issue in the near future. This paper aims to serve as an engine in this area of legal study, and to inspire more research in the coming future.
Subjects
Pharmacist
Pharmaceuticals
the Separation of Dispensing Practice from Medical Practice
Dispensing Prescription
Pharmaceutical Care Service
Duty of Care
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