Errors with prescription drugs are alarmingly common. While most mistakes cause little or no harm, they sometimes have disastrous consequences. The wrong med or wrong amount can lead to serious complications, including stroke, organ damage or death.

How do medication errors even occur? The medical professionals are supposed to protect us from harm, not cause it. Here are some common medication errors and what you can do to reduce the risk.

Wrong dosage

Many drugs are measured in milligrams (mg) or micrograms (mcg). A doctor may inadvertently prescribe the wrong amount. Or a nurse or pharmacist could misread the doctor’s prescription, converting a 10-milligram dose into 100 milligrams. Ingesting 10 or 100 times the amount of certain medications could trigger a fatal overdose or irreversible damage. An underdose can also make the medicine ineffective or even life-threatening.

Many people who use a computer on a daily basis have experienced bouts of carpal tunnel syndrome, which is a repetitive stress injury involving the wrist. This is just one of several conditions that come under the heading of repetitive motion disorders. Many parts of the body can be affected.

Concerned employers can provide special equipment or ergonomic programs to help workers avoid issues, as repetitive stress injuries could result in lost time at work and workers’ compensation claims. Temporary disability is a very real possibility. If not treated properly, the worst-case scenario is permanent disability.

Over the last six months, our blog has dedicated a series of posts to examining how those employees who suffer an “accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of employment” are entitled to benefits under the Maryland Workers’ Compensation Act.

Specifically, we’ve been spent time exploring temporary partial disability benefits, temporary total disability benefits and permanent partial disability benefits. We’ll conclude this discussion in today’s post by taking a closer look at permanent total disability benefits.

While motorists can now rely on everything from GPS systems and in-dash navigation programs to smartphones to provide them with directions, many nevertheless still rely on such tried-and-true techniques as consulting paper maps, asking strangers for directions and, of course, following friends.

Interestingly enough, a recently published study in the journal Frontiers in Psychology set out to determine just how safe this last method of getting from Point A to Point B really is.

Anyone who must undergo some manner of operation knows through their conversations with surgeons and their own research or personal experience that there is always some degree of risk involved. Indeed, postoperative complications can arise, infections can develop, and the underlying disease or condition can remain unchanged.

However, there is at least one aspect of surgery about which patients should be able to have complete confidence: avoiding wrong-site, wrong-procedure, wrong-patient errors or simply WSPEs. That’s because these types of surgical errors are typically 100 percent preventable and considered so flagrant that federal health officials have labeled them as “never events,” meaning they should simply never occur.

The unfortunate reality, however, is that even though WSPEs should never occur, they still do — and often with devastating results.

Back in May, our blog spent some time discussing how the very first decree in the Maryland Attorneys’ Rules of Professional Conduct dictates that all attorneys must provide clients with competent representation, meaning services demonstrating a reasonably necessary degree of “legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation.”

We also discussed how even though this may seem simple enough, it’s a far more complex matter, with multiple factors needing to be accounted for when considering an individual attorney’s legal knowledge and skill. We’ll continue this important discussion in today’s post.

As we’ve discussed on our blog before, more people than ever are now choosing to forgo their vehicles in favor of going by mass transit, bicycle or even on foot. The motivations for this drastic lifestyle change vary, of course, with some motivated by environmental concerns, others by finances and still others by healthy living.

As we’ve also discussed, however, this decision, while laudable, is not without risk given the dangerous driving practices of motorists from speeding to distracted driving.

Consider the recently released report from the Governors Highway Safety Association, which found that preliminary data from state highway safety offices indicated that 2016 was the most deadly year for pedestrians in a decade.

Indeed, the GHSA report found that 5,997 pedestrians lost their lives last year, an 11 percent increase from 2015 and yet another notch on an upward trend that has seen pedestrian deaths rise by 12 percent since 1996.

“Let’s be careful out there.”We see emergency situations frequently: a fire truck speeding through an intersection, a police officer in pursuit of a suspect, an ambulance heading for the hospital. We pull over to let these vehicles zip by, but what many people do not realize is how often accidents involve emergency vehicles.

If you were a victim of an emergency-related traffic accident, you have firsthand knowledge of the resulting chaos. You encouraged to seek legal help, whether you are a firefighter or a cop, an EMT or paramedic, a motorist or bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time, or a patient being transported.

When a person makes the decision to retain the services of an attorney to handle a particular issue — from an estate plan or employment agreement to a divorce or a DWI — they understandably assume — and rightly expect — a certain level of competence.

Indeed, the very first decree in the Maryland Attorneys’ Rules of Professional Conduct addresses this very issue, dictating that an attorney must provide “competent representation” to a client. Indeed, the rule goes on to declare that the foundation of such representation is “legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary.”

As you made your way to work this morning, chances are good that you noticed the usual assortment of questionable driving practices from those more interested in their phones than surrounding traffic to those who simply failed to notice the posted traffic signs.

You may have even encountered drivers whose behavior stopped short of road rage, but could easily be classified as dangerously assertive or perhaps even aggressive. As obnoxious as this type of behavior is, it can also be incredibly dangerous with statistics showing that aggressive driving is behind an alarming number of serious and even fatal car accidents.