These three prescriptions were handed to me two days ago. Can you read them? (Click each for a larger image.)
Answers will be posted tomorrow night. Reply in the comments! (Directions, too!)
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Exhibit C:
I should remind you, however, that electronic prescriptions are not a magic bullet, either, though they certainly mitigate problems like these.
[tags]Medicine, pharmacy, prescriptions, bad handwriting, doctor’s handwriting[/tags]
A) is methotrexate 2.5mg tabs, 6 tabs (15mg) once weekly by mouth.
B) is some kind of cream, no idea other than that
C)looks like Aristos pen (?), 5ml by intra-articular injection.
It’s a lot more difficult knowing we have different brand names for some drugs.
A. Methotrexate 2.5 mg, 6 tabs (15 mg) by mouth, weekly.
B. ElaMax cream; for local anesthesia [not very good directions]
C. Aristospan 20 mg/ml, multidose vial (5 ml), for intra-articular (IA) injection [injectable steroid; dispense MDV to patient, to bring to MD for injection]
I’m not a pharmacist (mere patient now, though once upon a time was Med Lab Tech), but just tongue in cheek for number 3…
Aristoc is a brand name for tights in UK, so my guess is it’s Aristoc tights in the colour “Pan” – maybe support tights? ;-) But I give up on the dosage – wear every day and take off at night? (it says “MIA night”, right?) NB Doc is probably dyslexic, which is why the c at end of Aristoc is back to front.
As to the 5ml, they are obviously ultra-compactable tights that are able to be stored in a 5 ml container. ;-) Ah, I suddenly got the other directions – it’s millimetre model, that would fit with my ultra compactable theory. :-)
I came here from a link from ukcommunitypharmacist’s blog, I don’t normally leave facetious comments, but I was so appalled by the so-called writing you are expected to decode that I couldn’t resist.
Best wishes from Liverpool (UK)
I emailed the images to my dad (a Pharmacist), and he came up with these results:
1)Methotrexate 2.5mg tab 6 weekly
2)Eurax cream ..usef or lice as directed
3)Aristopan 20mg/ml (?)multidose vial, use as directed
#1 Dinosaur was right on the money. :)
PS- #1 Dinosaur, I will have an entry that will interest you within the next two weeks. I have some legwork to do, first, though.
*blushing modestly*
Many thanks. I still handwrite my charts — legibly! I’m planning an anti-EMR rant in the near future.
Looking forward to whatever else you have of interest.
Forgive my ignorance, but I was surprised to see a scrip for multi-dose IA drugs. I was taught (for horses) to always use a new, unopened vial whenever going into a joint because of possible contamination and infection risk. Carbocaine we might keep for subcutaneous blocks (we use nerve blocks to figure out where a horse is lame, since they can’t tell us), but leftover triamcinolone gets chucked and extra amikacin and HA get put in the vein. I wonder why it is different, although it may be that risk of infection in general is greater with big beasts that live in barns.
horsetech,
MDVs are common for many injections. Perhaps it is because indoor environments are more easily controlled? There’s little risk of contaminating the contents of an MDV, even without a hood if basic aseptic technique is followed.
Also, some MDVs meds have bacteriostats in them so contaminants don’t grow. I honestly don’t know if Aristospan is one of them, since that’s the only time I’ve ever seen a script for it, and I wasn’t there when the med was actually filled to read the package insert…
Interesting, though.
Thank you for your response. We use MDV’s for IM, IV, and SQ, but not IA. It has been very interesting to me to read human medblogs and compare the two fields. Some things are similar but many things are very different!
I bought a Star TSP800 Prescription Printer for my clinic – it magically prints the prescriptions on thermal paper (paper is good for 7-10 years)and everyone can read my scripts, even the pharmacist~! No calls from the pharmacies since I installed them, only smiles from my staff!