Negligence Liability’s Role in Changing Pharmacotherapy Responsibilities Andrew F. Spillane Negligence liability has failed to keep up with the changing divisions of labor between physicians and pharmacists. Based on factual assumptions regarding the relative competencies and responsibilities of these health professionals, the courts have shouldered physicians with the greatest treatment responsibility and have accordingly relegated pharmacists to the role of pill counters except in especially serious circumstances.

January 19, 2011

Marquette Elder's Advisor, Vol. 12, No. 2, p. 453, 2011
Marquette Law School Legal Studies Paper No. 11-01 
Abstract:      

Negligence liability has failed to keep up with the changing divisions of labor between physicians and pharmacists. Based on factual assumptions regarding the relative competencies and responsibilities of these health professionals, the courts have shouldered physicians with the greatest treatment responsibility and have accordingly relegated pharmacists to the role of pill counters except in especially serious circumstances. These rules now exist alongside an emerging health care industry standard in which pharmacists command greater expertise of drugs than doctors do and in which doctors have taken on too many duties in light of their own competencies. Many commentators have advocated for greater collaboration between physicians and pharmacists in light of these issues, and such change is coming. To account for these changes and keep malpractice liability current, the courts should do away with many of the doctrinal limits on these professionals’ tort duties and instead adopt an overall reasonableness test.