Wrong dose?

You are right. I found the dosage information on epocrates.com. The pharmacy better catch that. The patient will be doped up if that med error happens.

Good example of how incompetent some doctors can be and how we, as ER nurses, are responsible for so much more than just nursing.

Just because the doc made an error does not make him "incompetent". I hope that the next time I make a mistake someone doesn't label me incompetent. We are all human and we are a team in the ED with a common goal to help the community "one spider bite at a time."

"Either/or" is a funny comment, guess he had bigger fish to fry and figured if it made the patient too sedate they would take less--probably not going to stop all respirations unless they were really frail.

The MD wrote for Tussionex 1 TBSP q12h prn cough. I questioned him and stated that I thought it was 1TSP q12h. He said...and I kid you not...'either or.' Uh...that's 3 times the dose buddy! It's extended release 10mg/5ml of Hydrocodone. Couldn't that really hurt the patient? I hope the pharmacy calls to question him...

Though is it not yet a JCAHO unapproved abbreviation, I bet it won't be long until it is. It is already a no-no at my hospital. Per our in-house policy, it is supposed to be written out in ml.

Just because the doc made an error does not make him "incompetent". I hope that the next time I make a mistake someone doesn't label me incompetent. We are all human and we are a team in the ED with a common goal to help the community "one spider bite at a time."

"Either/or" is a funny comment, guess he had bigger fish to fry and figured if it made the patient too sedate they would take less--probably not going to stop all respirations unless they were really frail.

I said he sounded incompetent due to his flippant response of "either/or", and apparently, since the OP was hoping the pharmacy would catch the error, it sounds like he did not fix the error. That, to me, seems negligent.

Does this happen often?