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A jury in Odessa, Texas, ordered Ramachandra Kolluru to pay $225,000 to the family of Ramon Vasquez, who died after a pharmacist misread Kolluru's writing.
The 42-year-old heart patient was given the wrong medication at eight times the recommended dosage. Two weeks later, he was dead from an apparent heart attack.
The victim's widow, Teresa Vasquez, says she sued to prompt doctors and pharmacists to be more careful.
''I was hoping we'd win, because if the doctors don't change their writing, then it could happen to me again with my kids or even me,'' she says. Now, ''doctors might change, and it might not ever happen again to anybody.''
The case points to a growing danger as medications become more numerous and their names more similar.
Pharmacist Michael Cohen of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices says mix-ups of drugs and doses are common. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of patients have been harmed either because someone misread a written prescription or because a nurse or aide misunderstood what an emergency-room doctor said should be given to a patient, he says.
''We're bringing more and more drugs to the market, and that's good news,'' Cohen says. ''But it's becoming more and more difficult for companies to come up with a name that doesn't look or sound like a drug that's already out there.''
In Vasquez's case, there was no dispute over the doctor's care, just whether Kolluru and the pharmacist should have been more careful about the prescription.
In June 1995, Vasquez was given a prescription for Isordil for heart pain caused by valve problems. The prescription called for him to take 20 milligrams of Isordil four times a day, for a total of 80 milligrams a day.
The pharmacist thought the handwritten prescription said Plendil, a drug for high blood pressure typically taken at no more than 10 milligrams a day.
So Vasquez received the wrong drug, with directions to take it at the high dosage meant for Isordil.
''After he took it, he would complain that his heart was pounding real fast, but after a while it would go away,'' Teresa Vasquez says of the first time her husband took the drug, on June 24, 1995.
By the next night, it became clear her husband needed medical attention. She took him to the emergency room, where doctors told her he had suffered a heart attack.
Two weeks later, he died.
At the trial, which ended last week, lawyers for the doctor called expert witnesses who testified the pills did not kill Vasquez. His heart was so weak, they argued, he was about to die anyway.
''But the jury thought that, given the massive dose of Plendil he took, it just could not have helped but do something, and they just chose to disbelieve the two experts,'' defense lawyer Max Wright says.
Teresa Vasquez agrees that her husband was very ill, and both she and her lawyer insisted the doctor's care was good.
''We had no complaint about (Kolluru's) care. In fact, he is a good doctor,'' lawyer Kent Buckingham says.
But Buckingham argued that Kolluru and the pharmacy were still responsible for Vasquez's death because of the mix-up. The jury agreed on Oct. 14 and awarded $450,000 to the 41-year-old widow and her three children.
Half of the judgment was assigned to the pharmacy, leaving Kolluru responsible for paying the other half. The doctor has not decided whether to appeal.
Because the pharmacy had previously settled its side of the case in 1998 for an undisclosed sum while denying liability, it does not have to pay its half of the verdict.
Wright says he believes the jury was trying to send a message to the medical community that in the computerized information age, there is no reason for doctors to create the potential for error by writing out their prescriptions instead of typing or printing them out.
Cohen also warns that patients should be more diligent as well. He says they should insist that doctors write out the reason for the medication on a prescription.
TEXT OF INFO BOX BEGINS HERE:
Prescriptions for confusion
The non-profit Institute for Safe Medication Practices warns that hundreds of drugs have similar names and are commonly confused with one another.
Among them: