It is important to question your physician about the prescriptions you are given. Most doctors will talk to you about the medication prescribed, but it is still important that you know what you're taking and ask appropriate questions.

• Know the name of the drug. This will enable you to look up information about the drug on your own. It will also enable you to discuss the drug with your doctor or another doctor for a second opinion.
• What is the purpose of the drug? This information will help you to know and understand what this drug is supposed to do and will let you know if the treatment is actually working.
• What are the side effects? It is helpful to be aware of the most common side effects. All drugs have some side effects. Information about side effects can be obtained by asking your doctor or pharmacist or consulting a reliable reference.

It is said that 79-year-old Leonard Kulisek had not suffered any major illness in the years before his unfortunate death, except he did have a prescription for his gout. The Walgreens pharmacist who filled Kulisek's prescription was working under the influence of OxyContin and hydrocodone. Instead of gout medicine, the bottle was filled with insulin pills. The next day, Kulisek slipped into a coma, and for the next 22 months suffered a series of health issues before he died.

The pharmacist admitted to being addicted to painkillers for eight years, and had stolen over 86,000 pills from the pharmacy where he worked. The jurors held Walgreens responsible for failing to catch the drug thefts or notice that the pharmacist had an addiction problem. Walgreens must pay $31 million dollars to the Kulisek family. Walgreens plans an appeal.

Medication errors can occur for a number of reasons. What can you do to avoid medication errors? According to Rx for Safety, the most common reasons that errors happen are:

• Incomplete information about a patient.
• Incomplete information about a medication, such as warnings or side effects.
• Poor communication regarding a prescription such as illegible handwriting, confusion between similar drug names, misuse of zeroes or decimal points or inappropriate abbreviations.
• Lack of appropriate labeling on the drug container or pharmacy shelf.

Before you leave the doctor's office, look at the written prescription. Can you read the handwriting? If you cannot, the pharmacist might have a problem reading it accurately. When you have your prescription filled, ask the pharmacist to answer any questions you might have regarding the medication. Check to make sure that printed literature is included with the prescription detailing information about side effects and proper dosages. On the side of the prescription bottle is a label that describes what the pill looks like. Check to make sure the description of the pill matches the pills inside the bottle.

For more information on additional safeguards, read Avoiding Medical Errors at RX for Safety.

I never thought the time would come when I could fill a page with names of people I know who have cancer or have died from cancer. When my mom's very best friend died years and years ago of pancreatic cancer, it seemed a remote chance that something like that would happen to someone I know. And then slowly, either because cancer cases increased or because my awareness increased -- or both -- my list of people with cancer grew and grew and grew. And now it's quite long. And it's quite disturbing. And it's empowering too -- because most people on my growing list are surviving. And here are seven survivors who are somehow connected to me -- seven survivors who make up just the tip of the cancer iceberg in my life that stretches far and wide.

The world is a dangerous place for the trusting and the innocent -- which is probably one of the reasons we have some of the laws we do to protect everyone.

Still, even with laws in place, it seems we are not all that safe. Frankly, I am disturbed by what I learned that I did not know about prescription drugs being dispensed in this country and the estimated number of those prescriptions that are counterfeit drugs. Drugs of ineffective strength. Drugs made with unknown chemicals. Drugs switched with less expensive drugs meant for another medical condition. Basically -- the wrong drugs.