The use of the word "teaspoon" for medicinces is hardly ever (never?) used in the UK these days. Most medicines have a plastic 5 mL teaspoom or a small measuring cup with 5 mL, 10 mL, 15 mL and 20 mL graduations.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Armstrong" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Cc: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2007 6:11 AM Subject: [USMA:38031] Re: Medical errors USA > On Sat, Feb 24, 2007 at 09:29:28PM +1100, Pat Naughtin wrote: > > Might I suggest that you look at some of these references extracted > > from the 'Institute for Health Freedom' web page. > > > > Institute of Medicine Reports that Medication Errors Harm 1.5 Million > > Patients Annually > > > > The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports that medication errors harm at > > least 1.5 million patients every year. This figure includes drug > > errors in hospitals, nursing homes, and among Medicare outpatients. > > But it is a conservative estimate because it does not account for drug > > errors in doctors? offices or by patients themselves. > > To give you a bit of an idea of the issues it can cause: > * Hospitals are metric. Almost exclusively (they interface with patients > in imperial, but everything is written down in metric). > * Pharmacies are metric > * General practitioners are a mixed bag, largely not understanding > metric (or refusing to acknowledge it's existence). > > In my own experiences, I've had a pediatrician try to describe 4ml as "a > little bit less than a teaspoon". I asked if she really meant 4ml, to > which she said yes, but wrote down 1tsp anyway on the prescription. When > the pharmacist saw it, they asked how much my daughter weighed and then > went ballistic as she was being prescribed an overdose. Oddly, after > ensuring that I knew that the proper dose was 4ml, the pharmacist > insisted in writing down 1tsp as that's what was on the prescription. :( > > It'd be really interesting to find out hard statistics on dosage errors > based on using imperial in a metric world. > > Paul >
