Pharmacists see hand written orders like the one below almost daily. The order has to be interpreted by a pharmacist, usually with a little hand waving and guessing (kind of like being a pharmacy Jedi), and entered on the patient’s medication profile before the nurse can access the medication from the automated dispensing cabinet and get it to the patient. Even though I’m used to looking at orders like this, there is simply no excuse for what you see below.
There are two medications contained in the hand written orders below. I double-dog dare you to find them. It’s kind of like a “Where’s Waldo” puzzle. Leave your guesses in the comment section of this post. Good luck.
.
Aww come on Jerry! The MD wants Culture and Sensitivity,
Then start Levaquin 500mg IV daily and some
Morphine Sulfate 1-2mg IV q4h prn breakthru pain
Do I win?
He shoots! He scores! Nice work, Chad. I’ll have to see what I can dig out of the prize chest for you.
One of our freshly minted pharmacists brought me the morphine order to look at. He was a little surprised when I asked him if he saw the Levaquin order. I used to have a file full of orders like this, but can’t seem to find it. I had some beauties. Nothing for a wiley old vet like you though. ;-)
Take care.
It is still absolutely horrible penmanship. Send this to Dennis Quaid and he would have a hay day.
I would Chad, if I knew how to get in contact with him.
Holy cow! How’d anyone ever figure that out? You both deserve medals, or at least a cold beverage.
Years of practice. That handwriting is pretty bad, but not the worst I’ve seen. Hey, it’s no worse then the Cocoa code I’ve seen you write.