not quite what they meant

[cellio]

I know that medication instructions are intentionally terse. There's limited space on the label and they have to assume that the person reading them is dumb, or confused, or too doped up to think straight. And I know that "we all know what they mean" trumps accuracy in that case. Ok, fine.

But even so, I cannot shake the two immediate reactions that "take one pill twice a day" always provokes in me: (1) recovery and reuse sounds icky, and (2) then why did you give me more than one?

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Quantity, dear. Not identity.

[cellio]

Yes, clearly that's what they meant. But it's not what they said. :-)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Better than the "b.i.d., p.o." on one of my prescriptions, which I was actually able to unravel only due to many years of Latin and also seeing "q.i.d." on another bottle. Hey, morons, aren't you supposed to translate the scrip into mook-speak for the customer?

[cellio]

Wow, that's pretty cryptic.

Not having access to either the many years of Latin or the other bottle, I cannot interpret your mysterious prescription.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

It lets them feel like they have Mystick Knowledge, y'know.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Ooh, sorry. Didn't mean to stump. b.i.d. is bis in die, i.e. twice in a day, (qid is four), p.o. is per orem, by mouth. So, same thing as your directions.

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

Grr. We spend a fair amount of time drilling the abbreviations into our pharmacy students, for just that reason. You're not supposed to have to translate it; you're not even supposed to see it!

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Not to mention they don't cover "take." I think you should take it to the zoo, and have a good time.

(Joke about programmers in the shower included by reference.)

[cellio]

*laugh*

You know, I was willing to grant them "take". But now you've planted an image of a pharmaceutical tour of the city... :-)

I'm reminded of an incident in a religion class. The rabbi wrote "you shall not work on Shabbat" on the board and asked where the ambiguities are. "Work" was the low-hanging fruit here and other students pounced on it, with a side tour into "Shabbat". I caused some raised eyebrows when I asserted that "you", "shall not", and "on" were also ambiguous. ("You": everyone, or only adults as for some other mitzvot? "Shall not": never, or are there ever exceptions? (Yes, in case you're wondering.) "On": exactly when do we start and stop?)

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I suppose one could argue that the prohibition is against *group* projects on Shabbat and individual work is ok (collective You rather than individual) although I rather expect Hebrew is more precise than English in that regard...

"It depends what the definition of "is" is!"

[cellio]

Hebrew does in fact distinguish between singular and plural "you".