EJF Visits Purdue University College of Pharmacy

It was such a privilege and honor to have been given the opportunity to lecture at Purdue University College of Pharmacy this past Friday by my friend Dr. Dan Degnan.  There were approximately 150 students in the patient safety and informatics class in attendance, all working hard to pursue their doctorate degrees. These students are our future leaders & experts who will ALWAYS be fighting the “the good fight,” always striving to make medication safety the absolute number one priority amongst ALL their colleagues in the different modalities, helping to assure the best possible outcome for EVERY single patient receiving healthcare. This is also why I’m so pleased to be able to say that this (PHRM 86800) patient safety and informatics class is actually a required course for all third year (P3) students in Purdue’s PharmD program.

I’m so convinced & extremely confident, that through these PharmD student’s strong and effective leadership throughout their careers, these students are the ones who will help lead the charge to help save countless lives from preventable medication errors, like the one that tragically claimed my daughter Emily’s life in 2006.

Unfortunately, many people in the public are completely unaware that what happened to my daughter Emily was not just a freak accident and that medication errors are responsible for the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives every single year in the United States alone. This is what makes this issue relevant to literally, ALL of us!  Why?  The answer is simple, we ALL receive healthcare during our lifetime, as do ALL our loved ones.

The good news in all of this, as I’ve mentioned countless times before is that I truly believe preventable medical errors are just that…PREVENTABLE!