← Chapter 1
Medical Terminology · Chapter 1

Reading the Chart

Abbreviations save time and are the single largest source of ambiguity in the medical record. Click every shortened term and every name-based term in these three entries, then judge it: is it clear, is it ambiguous enough to spell out, is it banned outright, or is it an eponym that a descriptive name has replaced?
clearambiguousdo not useeponym
0/0this entry
0judged correctly
0/28whole chart

What that means in full

Pick a highlighted term.
Every dashed box is a shortened or name-based term. Read the sentence around it first — context usually rescues you, but “usually” is a poor standard when a drug dose is on the line.

The rules that matter most

Joint Commission & ISMP
U, IUWrite unit. A handwritten U reads as a zero or a four.
Q.D., Q.O.D.Write daily and every other day. The period after the Q looks like an I.
Trailing zeroWrite 1 mg, never 1.0 mg, which reads as 10 mg.
Leading zeroWrite 0.5 mg, never .5 mg, whose decimal point disappears.
MS, MSO4, MgSO4Spell out morphine sulfate and magnesium sulfate.