On the Medications that Kill

This is one of the stories we heard from our morning rounds, about how housemen, a.k.a. the intern / the training doctor / freshly graduated medical students; kill a patient using anti-hypertensive drugs, a.k.a. medications which are commonly used to treat high blood pressure.

Apparently, there was this young doctor who was over-worked, wrote a prescription in the ward for a patient who was noted to have high blood pressure. The patient was started on Atenolol, a type of beta blockers used to control high blood pressure.

So, the prescription soon reached the pharmacy. The pharmacist called to confirm the dosage. Apparently, the dosage seemed to be too much for a person, but the houseman was either too tired or that the line was bad, he only made out the quantity, but not the units. So he just agreed to the query.

Before anyone realized, the patient was given that whole loads of Atenolol, ten pills at one go.

The patient's heart tremendously slowed down. Despite all the ante-dotes, the doctors failed to bring the patient back to life.

Houseman was subsequently subjected to disciplinary action, and had to answer to the hospital director and ministry of health or some sort.

But then again, I wonder, how could the pharmacist not know what's the maximum dosage a patient should be getting, knowing that it's pretty impossible to give the patient 10 pills at one go?

Or should we question the fact that we are overworked?