Physician medication errors often occur at the prescribing stage. Doctors recommend the wrong drug or the wrong dose. They fail to check patients for contraindications or allergies with potentially devastating consequences. If a patient responds well to treatment and receives the correct drug in the appropriate dose, that is beneficial in most cases. However, the success of treatment depends on how it ends, not on how it begins.

Physicians also need to ensure that they properly manage the end of a patient's treatment with certain drugs. Failure to do so can result in devastating medical consequences.

Stopping medications abruptly can be risky

Some drugs create physical or chemical dependence in patients. People who take prescription opioids, for example, may struggle with painful withdrawal symptoms if they abruptly stop taking the medication.

Many other drugs can also cause serious physical side effects if patients do not slowly taper off their dose. Steroids, such as prednisone, and mental health drugs, such as oxcarbazepine and venlafaxine, are among the many medications that physicians must carefully taper their patients off of to ensure the successful completion of a drug regimen.

Failing to warn patients about the risks of suddenly stopping their treatments and/or failing to monitor patients at the end of their drug regimen to ensure they reduce their dose slowly to avoid side effects can be a form of medical negligence.

Patients who experience poor medical outcomes due to negligent medication management practices may have grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit. Reviewing medical records with a skilled legal team, including how the physician ended their treatment, could help a patient evaluate whether the care they received was up to current standards.