Pharma, Policy

Father, pharmacist united by Emily’s Law plan speaking engagements

The father of the 2-year-old child whose death as a result of a medication error […]

The father of the 2-year-old child whose death as a result of a medication error led to “Emily’s Law” is planning joint speaking engagements with the pharmacist who went to jail for that error.

Chris Jerry, who founded the Emily Jerry Foundation after his daughter’s 2006 death, hopes the joint discussions with ex-pharmacist Eric Cropp will help educate health professionals and students about the danger seemingly small, careless medication errors can pose to patients. The story of human tragedy — and forgiveness — could serve as a powerful reminder to health professionals that they hold human lives in their hands throughout the course of each workday.

It also illustrates Jerry’s desire to support not only the patients and families harmed by medication errors, but the health professionals that Jerry calls “victims of an inefficient patient safety system.”

“People keep telling me ‘You’re crazy. You can’t advocate for both sides,’ but I don’t believe that,” Jerry said.

“When the system breaks down, it’s because human error is a component of medicine and always will be,” he continued. “What I’m learning in the patient safety movement is that we need to put forth cultural change, systemic change in medicine to affect patient safety and stop criminalizing these errors when they occur.”

Jerry said Cropp has accepted an invitation to join him for a June 30 talk he’s scheduled to give to pharmacy technician students from Sanford-Brown College on the Cleveland Clinic campus.

“This will be a great experience for our students to learn how these kinds of mistakes can affect other people’s lives,” said Kristen Malacos, pharmacy technician program director with Sanford-Brown.

Cropp, who was sentenced to six months in jail and six months under house arrest for approving a pharmacy tech’s solution that killed Emily Jerry, said he’d welcome the chance to share his experiences with students. Cropp, who worked for 16 years as a pharmacist, and Jerry recently met to discuss conducting public speeches together.

“We want to stress the fact that everybody’s got to slow down and treat each patient like they’re a member of your family,” Cropp said. “Healthcare is so fast and crazy sometimes we start to miss the fact that we’re taking care of a human being, not running an assembly line.”

Cropp, who said he’s “still healing” and has nightmares about Emily Jerry’s death, also has some practical advice for pharmacists: Get to know the technicians who work under you and be careful whom you trust.

“I stress to pharmacists that, with anybody who works under you, make sure before signing off on their work that you’re watching and understanding what they’re doing,” he said. “I tell them ‘You don’t want to be another Eric Cropp who goes to jail because you made a big mistake.'”

Jerry hopes the Sanford-Brown talk could be the first of many that he and Cropp hold for students and any health workers whose jobs put them in danger of making medication errors. He said he’s in talks with hospitals and schools about more speaking engagements.

The presentations would also give Jerry the opportunity to speak out against the criminalization of nonmalicious medication errors. The thinking is that criminalization can be counterproductive and make health workers less likely to report errors, which in turn prevents research that could help bring about change that could go toward solving the problem.

“There was no malice involved and it’s hard for people sometimes to see that, but [Cropp] was a victim of an inefficient safety system,” Jerry said. “Eric Cropp did not go to pharmacy school with intention of harming people.”

Ohio legislators in 2009 passed Emily’s Law, which created licensing and minimum education requirements for pharmacy technicians. Jerry started the foundation bearing his daughter’s name in part to advocate for a similar federal law.

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