Practice Areas

Common standard of care violations related to administering gentamicin

The most common circumstances where physicians may be negligent in prescribing gentamicin involve giving too high a dose of gentamicin, giving gentamicin for too long a period of time, or failing to adequately monitor gentamicin. In our experience with over 15 cases of gentamicin poisoning, we have developed a very systematic method of evaluating these cases to spot potential standard of care violations. Once these potential violations are spotted, appropriate experts can be retained to evaluate the case.

As with everything, there are exceptions. For example, in rare circumstances where a life-threatening infection exists, it may be necessary to give gentamicin with other ototoxic medications, at high doses, or for longer than 10-14 days.