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Medication Mix-ups 上错医院吃错药

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繁體中文譯本

Prescription errors harm millions of people each year  用药疏失每年导致数百万人受害

Slurred speech. Disorientation. Memory loss. Morris Ganaden thought he was having a stroke.

说话含糊不清、失去方向感、记忆力丧失，这些症状让莫里斯．加纳登以为自己中风了。

So did doctors in two emergency rooms, but brain scans and other tests turned up nothing wrong.

两间急诊室的医生原本也有同感，不过，脑部扫描和其他测试结果却都没发现问题。

Turns out Ganaden, 75, wasn’t having a stroke. He was taking the wrong pills.

结果原来是七十五岁的加纳登没有中风，而是吃错药了。

Despite efforts to prevent medication errors, mix-ups like this are occurring across the country with alarming frequency.

虽然各方努力想预防用药疏失的发生，但全美各地这类拿错药的案例仍极频繁地出现，令人忧心。

Ganaden was supposed to be taking a common thyroid medication called Synthroid. But a drugstore mistakenly refilled his prescription with Seroquel, a powerful antipsychotic that is used to treat symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

加纳登原本应该是要服用一种称为synthroid 的常见甲状腺药物，可是药局却误把Seroquel（思乐康）这种用来治疗精神分裂症和躁郁症等症状的强效抗精神病药物配给他。

Synthroid tablets are yellow and round. So are the larger Seroquel tablets. Ganaden didn’t detect the difference.

Synthroid 的药锭是黄色圆形的，而比较大颗的Seroquel药锭也一样的，所以加纳登没察觉到其中的不同。

“If it’s in the bottle, you don’t pay too much attention to what it is,” said Ganaden, a retired engineer. “If it was oblong, I probably would have noticed, but it was round and yellow.”

「如果药是装在瓶子里，就不太会注意到里头的东西，」加纳登这位退休工程师表示，「如果错开的药锭是椭圆形的，我也许还会注意到拿错药了，但这些药的外观却同样是圆形的黄色药锭（所以我没分辨出来）。」

Getting it wrong  开错药

Medication errors – wrong drug, incorrect does or improper use – harm at least 1.5 million people every year, according to the Institute of Medicine. Confusion caused by drugs with similar names accounts for up to 25 percent of the reported errors.

根据美国国家医学研究院的数据显示，用药疏失──无论是配错药、剂量不对，或用药不当──每年至少导致一百五十万人受害，而其中因为药名类似而导致混淆的案例，在用药疏失通报案例中比例高达百分之二十五。

Prostate drug Flomax gets confused with asthma drug Volmax. Premature infants with intravenous lines have received insulin instead of the blood thinner heparin. Patients with epilepsy have received the AIDS drug Keletra, instead of the anti-seizure drug Keppra.

摄护腺药Flomax很容易被误以为是气喘药Volmax（服迈宁）。接上静脉管的早产儿有时被误输入胰岛素，而非抗凝血药物肝素（heparin）；至于癫痫患者也曾被误施以艾滋病药物Keletra（快利佳），而非抗癫痫药物Keppra（优闲）。

“Unfortunately, these kinds of errors are commonplace,” said Jack Fincham, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kanasa City’s School of Pharmacy. “It’s the sheer number of drugs …. that look and sound alike. There’s lots of room for errors.“

「不幸的是，这类用药疏失相当常见，」密苏里大学堪萨斯分校药学院教授杰克．芬全表示，「因为药的种类诚然太多了…不但外观看起来很像，药名听起来也很类似，所以很容易出错。」

Health care organizations and federal regulators are working to prevent these kinds of mistakes, but the job is daunting.

各个健康照护机构和联邦主管单位都正致力于防范这类疏失发生，但这任务浩大得令人为之却步。

单词发音

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slurred [slɝd] adj. 含混不清的

disorientation [dɪsˋɔrɪɛnteʃən] n. 方向知觉的丧失, 迷惑

stroke [strok] n.（病）突然发作；中风

mix-up（计划上的）失误，差错 a state or an instance of confusion; a muddle

alarming [əˋlɑrmɪŋ] adj. 惊人的；令人担忧的；告急的

thyroid [ˋθaɪrɔɪd] adj.【解】甲状腺的；甲状软骨的；盾状的;  n. 【解】甲状腺；甲状软骨；甲状腺剂 a gland in the front of the neck which is involved in controlling the way the body develops and works

antipsychotic [æntɪsaɪˈkɑtɪk] adj. 抗精神病的;  n. 抗精神病药物a drug used to treat the symptoms of a psychiatric disorder

schizophrenia [͵skɪtsəˋfrinɪə] n. 精神分裂症  a serious mental illness in which someone cannot understand what is real and what is imaginary 

bipolar disorder 躁郁症; 双极人格失常；双相情感障碍  a mental illness causing someone to change from being extremely happy and excited to being extremely sad and depressed 

oblong [ˋɑbloŋ] adj. 椭圆形的

medication [͵mɛdɪˋkeʃən] n. 药物治疗; 药物

account for（在数量、比例上）占

prostate [ˋprɑs͵tet] adj.【解】前列腺（的）

intravenous [͵ɪntrəˋvinəs] adj. 注入静脉的  into or connected to a vein

insulin [ˋɪnsəlɪn] n. 胰岛素

epilepsy [ˋɛpəlɛpsɪ] n.【医】癫痫；羊痫风   a condition of the brain that causes a person to become unconscious for short periods or to move in a violent and uncontrolled way

school [skul] n. 学院；研究所；系

regulator [ˋrɛgjə͵letɚ] n. 监管者; 监管机构

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In a 2008 report, U.S. Pharmacopeia, the organization that sets standards for drugs, found 1,470 drugs implicated in the medication errors, some lethal, caused by brand names or generic names that sounded or looked alike. Together, these drugs created more than 3,000 mixed-up pairs, nearly twice the number the organization counted in 2004.

制定药物标准的美国药典组织在一份二００八年的报告中指出，已经发现有一千四百七十种药物容易涉及用药疏失，原因是药名或学名的发音或拼法很类似，有些甚至可能有致命的危险。总结来说，这些药物中可以找到超过三千对容易相互混淆的药物，而这数字是该组织在二００四年调查结果的近两倍之多。

“There has been a lot of attention paid to drug name mix-ups,” said Michael Cohen, a pharmacist and the president of the nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices. “But we probably haven’t made a lot of progress on the possibility that a patient gets the wrong prescription.”

「外界相当关注药名混淆的案例，」药剂师兼非营利的安全用药作业研究院总裁麦可．科恩指出，「但对于医生可能开给患者错误处方的可能性，却尚未有很大的进展。」

More than 3 billion prescriptions are filled each year, and the number keeps growing. Errors can be made all along the route from prescribing to dispensing.

每年有超过三十亿个处方被拿去配药，而这数字仍持续成长中。从开处方到配药的每个过程中，都有可能发生疏失。

A doctor’s illegible writing is mis-read. A bad phone connection makes a called-in prescription unclear. A busy pharmacy worker grabs the wrong pills off a shelf where inventory is kept in alphabetical order.

像是医生的笔迹难以辨认，导致被看错了；电话线路不良也有可能使打电话说处方的话语没有被听清楚，而忙碌的药局工作人员也有可能从架上拿错药，因为库藏是按照英文字母来排列（一不小心就可能拿错）。

Analyzing the problem  分析问题

In a case like Ganaden’s, “you can almost see a scenario where a tech or pharmacist picked up the wrong med tray” to fill his prescription bottle, Cohen said.

就加纳登的例子来说，「几乎可以分析整个情况应该是技术人员或药剂师拿错发药盘」，而把错的药配到他的药瓶中，科恩如此表示。

Ganaden mentioned to his wife that the problem started just after he took his Synthroid. She scrutinized the pills with a magnifying glass. Although the prescription bottle said “Synthroid,” the pills were marked “Seroquel.”

加纳登曾向妻子提到，自从开始服用Synthroid之后，身体就开始出问题了，于是她用放大镜仔细检查药锭，发现虽然处方药瓶上写着「Synthroid」，但药锭上却标示着「Seroquel」。

Experts say consumers can do a lot to make sure they are getting the right drugs. For example: make sure your physician writes both the brand name and generic name on each prescription, along with the purpose of the drug.

专家表示，消费者可以采取很多方法来确保自己拿到正确的药。例如，可以请医生在处方上同时写下药名和学名，以及药物的效能。

At the pharmacy, accept the counseling offered by the pharmacist. With the pharmacist, check the labels on the bottles and open them to make sure the right pills are inside.

到药局时，不妨接受药剂师所提供的咨询服务，并在药剂师的协助下，检查药瓶上的标签，并打开来检查，以确保瓶子里头装的是正确的药锭。

“Most consumers are in a rush and don’t see a value to it,” Cohen said. “And they’re wrong.”

「大部分消费者都很匆忙，他们不明白上述做法有什么价值，」科恩表示，「但他们这样的想法其实是错的。」

−by Alan Bavley

单词发音

More Information

pharmacopeia [͵fɑrməkoˋpɪə] n. 药典；配药书

generic [dʒɪˋnɛrɪk] adj. 非商标的；没有商标名的

pharmacist [ˋfɑrməsɪst] n. 药剂师

prescription [prɪˋskrɪpʃən] n. 处方，药方

dispensing [dɪˋspɛnsɪŋ] n. 配药

alphabetical [͵ælfəˋbɛtɪk!] adj. 字母的；照字母次序的

tray [tre] n. 盘子，托盘

pharmacy [ˋfɑrməsɪ] n. 药房

单词发音

Vocabulary Focus

commonplace [ˋkɑmən͵ples] n. 司空见惯的事 happening often or often seen or experienced and so not considered being unusual

sheer [ʃɪr] adj. (用于强调)纯粹的，完全的，十足的 used to emphasize how very great, important or powerful a quality is

daunting [ˋdɔntɪŋ] adj. 令人怯步的；使人气馁的 making one feel slightly frightened or worried about one’s ability to achieve something

implicate [ˋɪmplɪ͵ketɪd] v. 牵连；连累 to show that something is involved in or partly responsible for something bad that has happened

illegible [ɪˋlɛdʒəb!] adj. 难读的；难认的 making writing or print impossible or almost impossible to read; not clear

scenario [sɪˋnɛrɪ͵o] n.【义】情节；剧本 a description of possible actions or events

scrutinize [ˋskrutn͵aɪz] v. 详细检查；细看 to examine something very carefully in order to discover information

seroquel

synthroid