A new pet peeve of mine

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Specializes in jack of all trades, master of none.

Maybe I am just INCREDIBLY anal retentive.... I absolutely can't stand it when people misspell drug names. I just want to jump out of my skin every time I see that!! I just can't believe how common it is. Don't people look things up anymore? I can't imagine that things like Risperdal would be spelled wrong SOOOO frequently, if people were really looking things up before giving a drug they are not familiar with.

Thoughts???

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I can sympathize. It also amuses me though that these are completely MADE UP words. The only reason Risperdal is spelled that way is because some PR person at a drug company thought it looked good.

I remember having to ask how Dilaudid was spelled becuase there are sooo many different ways of spelling it that would result in the same pronounciation:

Deladed

Dilaeuded

Dilloudid

Dilauded

Dialouded

Dalauded

Daladid

Dalaudad

Dealadid

ok, I'm bored tonight... :chuckle

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One of our ding dong residents always spells pepcid as pepsid :) makes me think he's ordering some new brand of pepsi. :)

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It's a very good point to be anal on...misspelling a drug name could lead to giving the wrong drug.

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last week I got an order for 250 CC's of docusate. Its also good to be anal about the unit of measure :chuckle

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You'll hate me then.

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It's a very good point to be anal on...misspelling a drug name could lead to giving the wrong drug.

Yeah. I'm going to give "250 cc's" of DSS.

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Specializes in Gerontology, Med surg, Home Health.

I worked with a woman who was an excellent nurse, but there were some words she just couldn't spell. She would write about the demented residents that they had "cognitive deficates". After reading that and almost peeing in my pants from laughing so hard, I asked her if that was the new term for "s**t for brains"!!!

I really do hate misspelled words and bad grammar and I don't think it's particularly anal to be that way.

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Nothing wrong with being anal about spelling drug names correctly. The difference of a letter or two can mean two completely different drugs, such as cerebex and celebrex. I've often wondered how many drug errors are due to bad handwriting as well.

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Specializes in Utilization Management.

Oh boy, one of my pet peeves too.

Phenergen is NOT phenergren

Agitated is NOT aggitated

It's Demerol, NOT Demeral

Morphine, NOT Morephine

TYLENOL, not Tyelnol

This could drive me nuts if I let it, but I have other fish to fry.

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
It's a very good point to be anal on...misspelling a drug name could lead to giving the wrong drug.

Exactly.

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Oh boy, one of my pet peeves too.

Phenergen is NOT phenergren

Actually, it's Phenergan.

:)

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