How To Read A Medical Doctors Prescription

Medical Prescription
Medical Prescription
You will hardly leave a medical doctor office without a medical prescription. A medical prescription is a written note or instructions from a medical doctor to a health care provider in the hospital on what the patient condition is and what the others should do to find a lasting solutions.
Ability to write a medical prescription is an art that must be learn by medical doctors. The ability to interpret by other health care providers is a requirement.
Pharmacist are one of the major health providers that get to see prescription from patients all the time. A visit to the hospital is hardly complete without a visit to the hospital pharmacy unit. A medical doctor has the power to send you to various units within the hospital to have a better diagnosis. Getting the diagnosis right leads to getting proper treatment which most of the time require a drug for that.

Doctors have, over time learn how to master medical terminologies of other units in other to have an effective communication about a patient’s health and diagnosis. This, known as a prescription or instruction is directed at a particular medical personnel who must interpret the terms used in other to achieve a better diagnosis.

How To Read A Medical Prescription

Here, in this case, the prescriber is a medical doctor while the dispenser is a pharmacist. These drug information are written in codes that seem difficult to understand by the common person. This is worse by the bad handwritten of most prescribers. Well, in this article, we shall see some of those medical formulas and how to read them in a clear manner.


Information On Medical Prescription

The information scribbled on a patient medical card can be divided into demographic, diagnosis and treatment with the prescribers’ information.

Demography: The person in charge normally enters this information on the medical card in the medical card unit. They gather such information in other to enhance the diagnosis by the doctor. Such information includes name, age, gender, vital signs, etc.


Date: This is very crucial as well as important for the various reasons:


  1. The date makes it easy to locate the medical card on a future visit.
  2. It helps to prevent drug misuse in the sense that some drugs are not to be taken more than a period.
  3. The vital signs help the doctor in diagnosis.
Glancing through the medical card with a date can help a doctor save the patient from further consumption of such drug.

Diagnosis: This is the signs and symptoms, which in the most case starts with the letter cc, which means chief complain. CC details all the feelings the patient have and use it to predict the medical condition suspected. In most cases, the suspected may be up to three with a treatment plan for the most suspected or the most suspected.


Rx: This can be said to be an action plan for all staffs to take to achieve a proper diagnosis. It ranges from test, admission, drugs etc. however, let me discuss the aspect that I can talk better on; drug.

Drug Prescribed

In drug prescribing, there are many abbreviations, which are acceptable. That is why all pharmacy must know them. Take the following example as a prescription from a doctor. It may seem strange because the once from doctors are not type hence may look different.

Tab pcm 500 mg II tds 2/52 po

Or

Syr pcm 10 ml tid 2/52 po

Here is the general information in the prescription above:

Dosage From: The first information in the prescription is the form the drug should be dispensed. That is if the drug should be dispensed in the form of tablet, syrup, or injection. Below is some abbreviation of dosage forms in prescription:


  • Tab for tablet
  • Cap for capsule
  • Capl for caplet
  • Syr for syrup
  • Inj for injection
  • Gutt for drop
  • OCC for cream
  • Etc.
Note that gutt or gtt is use for ear drops and occ interpreted as occular is use for eye drops in Nigeria. Most medical abbreviations are the same worldwide with slight variations.
Generic: This is the name of the active ingredient or API. The prescription recommended by World Health Organisation (W.H.O) allows the prescription of an active drug and not a brand name. This way the cheap popularity of a friend’s product will not be pushed into the hands of the public.
This is only neglected when the drug is of a nature that different product of the same active has different actions on the same individual. Now let us look at the prescription above once more. The word there as PCM simply means paracetamol.
In other cases, the full name of the drug may be scribbled on the card. As you all know, paracetamol is not tied to any company label. It can be the one produced by emzor or M&B.

Dosage strength: This quantity should be taken at a given time. This may be in form of g or ml depending on the dosage form. Lets us still go back to our earlier example.
The dosage strength there is 500 mg of the drug. However a closer look at the order, we will notice an attached II at the front of the 500 mg. This simply means that 500 mg of paracetamol should be double. In essence, the full prescribed dose is 1000 mg.
If the paracetamol dispense is labelled 1000 mg or 1 g, it means that we are to take one tablet of that one. If it is 500 mg or 0.5 g, it also means we are to combine two of the 500 mg tablet at once. Since this is not found in the other prescription, the patient can go ahead without calculation.

In other cases, it is in ml where the instruction will be something like taking 5 ml or one teaspoonful. Teaspoonful and tablespoon have standard volumes which can also be used.

It should be noted that some drugs come in different strength e.g. Tramadol has 50 mg, 100 mg and 200 mg. If a medical doctor should prescribe for a patient 100 mg and the pharmacist gave 50 mg, the patient must double the tablet to achieve the correct dose.

Read Also: Drug Information Patient Should Know In Their Drug Leaflet

Frequency: The next coded information is how often the drug should be taken. The example at the top shows that the drug should be taken three times daily. This is indicated in the letter TDS, which is a Latin word meaning three times daily. That means the drug ought to be taken one in the morning, one in the afternoon and last one in the evening. There is still another coding, which is term medical abbreviations. Some few examples below are:
  1. B.d means two times daily- morning and evening
  2. Nocte means night time or before bedtime
  3. T.i.d also means three times daily
  4. Etc.
Duration: Some patients are expected to finish their dosage in a couple of days while others may be up to two weeks. With an instruction, the pharmacist will be able to calculate the quantity of the drug to give that it serves the patient for that time of therapy.
The 2/52 shown there can be deduced from the 52 weeks in a year. That means the two at the top is two weeks. This is it. The patient will take the drug for two weeks. Other examples are; 3/7 means seven days make one week and the drug is to be taken 3 days of seven days.

Route Of Administration: Note that not all drugs are taken through the mouth as the example above signified when it stated PO meaning per oral. Others are injection, sublingual, topical etc.
Now let me break down the prescription proper. The tablet of paracetamol should be given to the patient. The patient should take 1000 mg in the morning, afternoon and evening through the oral route. The duration of the treatment is for two weeks.

If a pharmacist is to dispense this medication, a tablet of 500 mg will amount to 42 tablets while the number will reduce if the tablet is in the form of 1000 mg by half.

Examples Of Medical Prescription

Here is an example of a typical prescription;
Tab PCM 500mg tid ³/7
Tab PCM 1g tid ⁴/52
Syr PCM 5ml bd ³/7
Gutt ciprofloxacin II drops tid ¹/12
OCC ciprofloxacin I drop qid ¹/13
Ventolin 2puff prn
Cap doxycycline 100mg II stat, then I daily
Cap doxycycline 200mg stat, then I daily
The example above is a simplified version. More complex prescriptions contain other more complicate medical jargons. Although this work is just to give intern pharmacist an idea of what prescription writing is all about.

Share On Social Media With Family And Friends To Show You Care!

Comments

  1. Nice collection of data. Your journal post is basically smart. these tips square measure very helpful for LED Customers
    prescription discount card online

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous15 July, 2018

    Thank you a bunch for sharing this with all people you really understand what you
    are talking approximately! Bookmarked. Kindly additionally consult with my website =).
    We will have a hyperlink exchange agreement among us

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous17 July, 2018

    Hi there I am so excited I found your web site, I really
    found you by error, while I was researching on Digg for something else, Regardless I am here now and would just like to say thanks for
    a remarkable post and a all round interesting blog (I also love the theme/design), I
    don't have time to browse it all at the minute but I have bookmarked it
    and also included your RSS feeds, so when I have time
    I will be back to read much more, Please do keep up the excellent work.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very good blog! Do you have any suggestions for aspiring writers?
    I'm hoping to start my own site soon but I'm
    a little lost on everything. Would you suggest starting with a free platform like Wordpress or
    go for a paid option? There are so many
    options out there that I'm completely overwhelmed ..
    Any suggestions? Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Undeniably consider that which you stated.
    Your favourite justification seemed to be on the internet the simplest factor to be mindful of.
    I say to you, I definitely get annoyed at the same time as
    other people think about worries that they just don't know
    about. You controlled to hit the nail upon the highest and also defined out the whole thing with no need side-effects ,
    people could take a signal. Will likely be back to get more.
    Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wonderful article! This is the type of info that are supposed to be shared across the web.
    Disgrace on the seek engines for now not positioning this put up higher!
    Come on over and consult with my web site .
    Thank you =)

    ReplyDelete
  7. I am in fact grateful to the owner of this website who has shared this wonderful post at at this time.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm not certain where you're getting your
    info, however good topic. I must spend a while studying much more or working out more.
    Thank you for great information I used to be on the lookout for
    this info for my mission.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Nice respond in return of this matter with solid arguments and telling everything on the topic of that.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lovely just what I was searching for. Thanks to the author for taking his clock time on this one.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hey there, You have done a fantastic job.
    I will definitely digg it and personally suggest to
    my friends. I am sure they'll be benefited from this web site.

    ReplyDelete
  12. What's up, just wanted to mention, I liked this post.
    It was helpful. Keep on posting!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Fabulous, what a web site it is! This weblog gives helpful data to us, keep it up.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Its like you read my mind! You appear to know so
    much about this, like you wrote the book in it or something.
    I think that you could do with some pics to drive the message
    home a little bit, but instead of that, this is
    great blog. A fantastic read. I will certainly be back.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Very good site you have here but I was wondering if you knew of any discussion boards that cover the same topics discussed
    here? I'd really love to be a part of online
    community where I can get opinions from other experienced
    people that share the same interest. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.
    Kudos!

    ReplyDelete
  16. My brother suggested I would possibly like this website.
    He used to be entirely right. This post actually made my day.
    You cann't believe simply how so much time I had spent for this info!
    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  17. It took me until now to know this,knowledge is power indeed! Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  18. I got this prescription for Carditan where the doctor wrote 2/52 and the Pharmacist wrote 2x1 on the packet and gave me 60tablets. Is there need to worry?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The 2/52 means that the drug is to be taken for two weeks out of the 52 weeks in a year. I guess you are not in Nigeria. This prescription by the pharmacist is not common in Nigeria. However, it should mean two tablet to be taken once a day. If that is correct, you can take 2 tablet at once starting anytime of the day but maintain a 24 hours interval between each dose. So if you start taking the drug in the morning, the next dose should be the next day morning. For better clarification, please consult your pharmacist

      Delete
  19. Thanks so much for the information.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thank you for doing a great job. Pls I doctor prescribed
    Tab. Azithromycin 500mg daily * 3/7 pls what does this means?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Please have your say

Consultation Service