Look at the last line of this article:

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TIMES 19/8/08
Britain
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Errors make baloney of doctors' letters

By Chris Johnston

HOSPITALS are putting patients¹ lives at risk by sending doctors¹ letters to India to be typed, risking the introduction of serious errors and misspellings, the Association of Medical Secretaries has claimed.

Eight London hospitals are using the company Omnimedical to clear a backlog of letters. The association gave warning that using Indian secretarial staff could have fatal consequences.

St George¹s Hospital in Tooting, southwest London, and seven others in the capital are using the service to type about 7,000 letters a month, which are sent to GPs to update them on their patients¹ treatment.

A St George¹s spokesman said that safeguards ensured that letters were accurate. But Michael Fiennes, of the Association of Medical Secretaries, said that mistakes so serious that they could lead to patients being given the wrong dose of medication were creeping into letters. In one example, the drug Lansoprazole, used to treat stomach ulcers, was transcribed as the holiday resort ³ Lanzarote².

In another case, ³phlebitis (vein inflammation) left leg² was changed to ³flea bite his left leg², while a ³below knee amputation² was transcribed as ³baloney amputation², according to Mr Fiennes.

He said that mistakes could also occur by changing the dosage of a drug given, for example from 5mg to 50mg.

REST OF ARTICLE SNIPPED

TB:
Look at the last line of this article:


He said that mistakes could also occur by changing the dosage of a drug given, for example from 5mg to 50mg.

metre:
Whoever wrote that last line is a metric illiterate like you. To make that mistake you must be half blind. What he meant to show are problems like these. It is wrong to write .5 g instead of 0.5 g, or 5.0 g instead of 5 g.

That neither the writer nor you latched on to this simple metric fact shows how dangerous it is to have 2 systems operating side by side.

One cannot blam metrication for the catalogue of errors shown - those that are associated with units of measure would probably have occured just as frequently regardless of whether metric or Imperial units were used.

What this posting does show is how Tony is scrapping the bottom of the barrel to try and discredit metrication.

All this is trying to demonstrate is that it would be easy to insert an extra "0". I don't see what it has to do with either system of measurement.

How about this for a clear case of shooting his foot (ie glaringly showing how little he knows about metric) - what a 'dim-wit'! :

" It is wrong to write .5 g instead of 0.5 g, or 5.0 g instead of 5 g "

BTW TB is right and eric is wrong - mistakes have been made by misplaced "points" - quite dangerous ones.

It's not so much a metric vs imperial thing because both systems can lend themselves to this error at this magnitudes of number

Metre, Martin,

Don't fall into the Bennett "Aunt Sally" (as he calls it) trap.

All we are told is that for some unknown reason 5 mg was transcribed into 50 mg.

Without knowing more we can't comment, so don't be tempted to read anything into it.

Unless Mr B can present a bit more, e.g. the alleged cause of the mistakes, there was no point whatever to his post.

re (Stan): "...there was no point whatever to his post".

REPLY: You're dead right. The article I posted mentioned 5g or 50g, not, er, .5g or 0.5g or 5.0g or 50.0g

TB:
He said that mistakes could also occur by changing the dosage of a drug given, for example from 5mg to 50mg.

metre:
Warning! A little bit of metric knowledge is very dangerous, as all imperialists writing on this subject show. None has even understood what the examples actually imply.

I think Tony's point was that mistakes in calculation can occur no matter which system you are using, so converting to metric would not be a panacea that would eliminate all medical calculation errors.

Re: 'Warning: Too Many Milligrams May Damage Your Health' - Times, 19 Aug 2004 August 24 2004, 6:17 AM

Bud:
I think Tony's point was that mistakes in calculation can occur no matter which system you are using, so converting to metric would not be a panacea that would eliminate all medical calculation errors

metre:
Your bias is blatant. Look at the caption of Tony's post to see what he really meant.
While mistakes are made everywhere, most people would put their money on solely metric educated Drs. to make fewer mistakes.
That should be self evident to anyone with an open mind.
One patient accidentally killed would be worth the change.

<<Warning! A little bit of metric knowledge is very dangerous, as all imperialists writing on this subject show. None has even understood what the examples actually imply. >>

This from the old man who has made numerous mistakes when tryin to put across that he knows metric!

Folks, on metricsucks he had a go at me for assuming that he only knew metric and wasn't taught imperial at school - it turned out that the opposite was true! It is on this basis - ie his own dilemma, that he believes that you cannot know both systems at the same time.


There are plenty example of getting points wrong etc around the place.

Here's a hint - micrograms being expressed (or mistakingly read) as milligrams.

eric, a "microgram" ­is the "next one down" from a "milligram", mate!

Steve wrote
eric, a "microgram" ­is the "next one down" from a "milligram", mate!

Why isn't milli short for a millionth.
And how many micro-mini skirts in a normal standard skirt?

BRING BACK THE SCRUPLE- SAVE LIFE.
S.Cruple

<<Why isn't milli short for a millionth>>

You can blame the French for that!

Steve H wrote

<<
<<Why isn't milli short for a millionth>>

You can blame the French for that!
>>

May I remind you that the Latin word for a "thousand" was "mille" from which the phrase "mille passum" was derived and which later became "mile".

Consider me being taught, rather than reminded (in relation to the last bit).

But don't forget the reason behind the orig question, and what the french for thousand is.

The French was of course derived from the Latin.