Paul Trusten wrote: >On the patient intake form at my hospital, there is a field which is >labeled "WEIGHT" followed by a blank space, and then, two checkboxes, >one for LB and one for KG, so the nurse is supposed to indicate which >units she is documenting, pounds or kilograms. If the number inserted in >the box is, let's say, 125, and the neither box is checked to indicate >the units, then the person using the number has a perilous guess to >make: the patient is either 125 kg (if the number represents the mass in >kg) or 57 kg (if the number represents the weight in pounds). . . . <SNIP> . . . >My chief pharmacist is also on the forms commitee, so I went to her this >week and asked if, to eschew future obfuscation, the committee could >get the dual units removed, and the form changed to ask for mass in >kilograms ONLY and height in centimeters ONLY. So, my request is on the >way to the forms committee. I'll let y'all know if the form is revised. Good for you! Seventeen years ago I spent some time in the cancer ward at Indiana Univerity Hospital. The chemotherapy drug doses have to be carefully tailored to the patient's mass (and skin area too, if I remember correctly), so the scales there measured mass in kg and height in cm only. Thus, there was no possibility of confusion. Alas, other hospitals I have visited have scales that measure in pounds and inches.
