Apothecary measures in medicine

[comocean]

I would like to solicit the assistance of anyone that could help substantiate the removal of the apothecary system of measurement from the curriculum at my nursing school. I presented the concept to the associate dean and substantiated my position. He agreed and is willing to take that suggestion to the curriculum committee for the removal. I simy hope to have rock solid substantiated evidence to sway that committee to immediately remove this archaic system that causes more medication errors than any other singular aspect as well as to show it should be used as a historical concept rather than that of modern medication practices. Any substantiated support on this topic would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

I am substantially bummed that OP bailed on this thread.

[OrganizedChaos, LVN]

I am substantially bummed that OP bailed on this thread.

Me too.

[AspiringNurseMW]

See here's the thing, as a student nurse :

My instructor made it very clear that we will likely never use apothecary system of measurement. But NOT being able to recognize it at all would likely lead to med errors..... What if I wasn't taught anything about it, saw gr somewhere and assumed that meant grams instead if grains?

[iwantsome]

Maybe OP was trying to substantiate the substantial amount of medication erroneously given causing substantial harm to a patient they knew. If one could substantiate that the error was caused by a substantial misuse of an archaic system, a substantial amount of guilt could be deflected to substantiate the error.

This would substantially absolve the OP of guilt, and instead point to the conclusion that the substantial claim of human error causing death in medication errors substantially had no substance. Or not.

I rest my case, substantially.

That made my head hurt a little bit.

[TMColeman, CMA, LPN]

I'm just sitting back and sipping on my tea and eating my popcorn...carry on. Lol:yes:

[lavenderskies, BSN]

I believe it was this text book that I used that discussed the apothecary system as being antiquated and no longer in use? Or discouraged from use? I don't have the book anymore so I can't say for sure how it was addressed exactly.

Curren's Math for Meds: Dosages and Solutions, 11th Edition*Paperback*– 2014

by*Anna M. Curren*(Author),Margaret H. Witt*(Author)

[MunoRN, RN]

Defunct apothecary measurements such as grains have actually been banned by USP for some time now. As an interesting point in pharmaceutical history, the apothecary system has a place in nursing education, but really the only thing a nurse absolutely has to know about interpreting an order written in grains is that it's not an acceptable order and the MD needs to write it correctly.

The problem with grains for instance is that there is no standardized definition of a grain. If you got an order in grains you would not only need to convert it to the form of measurement a medication is dispensed in, you would also need to determine whether the prescriber prefers the roman, iberian, french, troy, or one of two german ounce systems, then use that particular definition of a grain to convert the order, since 1mg=somewhere between 60 and 74 grains, depending on the system. Or....just stick to writing the order in mgs, grams, etc in the first place, which is the current official standard.

[Mavrick, BSN, RN]

I am substantially bummed that OP bailed on this thread.

We were just getting warmed up. I'm not sure how many degrees apothecarily.

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

We were just getting warmed up. I'm not sure how many degrees apothecarily.

I vote it be in degrees Kelvin!