? abbreviations for documenting

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Anyone know where I can find a key online to documentation abbreviations??

We have a page long list of common abbrevs. but no answers, (q.i.d PO etc)

Is it in my text because I havent seen it.........

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Specializes in Level III cardiac/telemetry.

try a medical dictionary, most of them should be in there.

I can help you with the ones you mentioned.... qid means 4 times a day. Also bid means twice daily and tid is 3 times daily. PO means by mouth (from the latin per os, or something like that!) so NPO means nothing by mouth. Some others you may encounter are BSC=bedside commode, BRP=bathroom privelges, TCDB=turn, cough, deep breathe

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

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Hi, I had this same problem when I took pharmacology calculations a year ago. I googled "latin medical abbreviations" and many sites popped up. It made it so much easier to memorize the abbreviations when I understood what they meant.

For example, pc stands for "post cibum" which means "after meals"

gtt comes from "guttae" for "drops"

prn comes from "pro re nata" which means "when necessary"

They are actually fun once you understand them.

I hope that helped.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

Here are some sites where you might find some help:

http://www.lcsc.edu/healthocc/enable02/medterm.htm - medical terminology in a nutshell with several short quizzes - organized into sections on word roots, suffixes, prefixes, how to read a medical term, and abbreviations

http://www.csufresno.edu/nursingstudents/FSNC/abbreviations.htm - common abbreviations used for nurses, particularly related to medication administration routes, times and measurements, IV solution shortened names, abbreviations of dosage forms, commonly used documentation terms and common lab tests that are ordered.

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This is a great glossary of abbreviations. I found all the ones I needed for the test we have this Wednesday here:

http://www.jdmd.com/glossary/medabbr.pdf

~t

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Thanks everybody! I love allnurses.com! I just hope people are just as helpful in the work place! LOL

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Just don't get too used to some of the abbreviations, many are not in use anymore and hospitals are phasing them out.

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