Prevent Errors With Your Pet’s Medicine
Just as medication errors can happen with humans, they can also happen when medicines are prescribed for your pet. In 2008, the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine started taking a closer look at errors and ways to increase the safe use of medicines for pets.
Pet prescriptions are usually filled at human pharmacies, but veterinarians sometimes use different language than doctors, and something as simple as an abbreviation could cause your pet to receive a different medication than what was intended. The FDA suggests you ask important questions before leaving your veterinarian’s office, such as:
- What is the name of the drug? What is it supposed to do?
- How much of the medication should I give each time?
- How many times a day should I give it?
- How should I store it?