On 2007 02 13 12:27 PM, "Paul Trusten, R.Ph." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I read today that part of Australia's metrication process included recording > of > blood pressures in kilopascals instead of millimeters of mercury. Is mm Hg > now > only a U.S. measure? What about Canada? India? South Africa? What about other > countries? > > -- > Paul Trusten, R.Ph. > Public Relations Director > U.S. Metric Association, Inc. Dear Paul, I am no expert on the medical community and their varied measuring practices but, it seems to me, that most medical practitioners use millimetres of mercury as their unit of choice for measuring blood pressure. There was an attempt made to get medicine in Australia to use the coherent units of The International System of Units (SI) in the 1970s but this was largely a failure because the medical community held to a firm conviction that they had already 'gone metric' a hundred or so years earlier. Most medical practitioners do not know that the metric units they use are part of a metric system. The net result is that the medical community in Australia operates without a shared measurement policy. Each individual essentially follows their own rules. Every so often, after there is a spate of accidental deaths due to measurement errors, a particular hospital or even a whole town or district, will try to devise yet another attempt to institute SI units but they are always resisted by the conservative doctors and nurses. However, having said all of that, there is sometimes a small step toward using an SI unit (say mmol/L for blood glucose). When this sticks, there is progress and I suppose that over time they are using more and more SI. But, I suspect that mmHg (or mm-hg or MMHG or mm-HG) will be one of the last to go. One of the main arguments for keeping mmhg will be that the doctors know the few old reference points, such as 100 plus your age is a good blood pressure, and a few others that are needed to make comparisons. This is sort of like saying, 'We know that mmHg is not SI and is therefore not part of a coherent system of units. We know that there are better ways of measuring and reporting blood pressures but we are happy doing it in a less than best way simply because we're used to it.' Cheers, Pat Naughtin PO Box 305, Belmont, 3216 Geelong, Australia [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metricationmatters.com
