.5mg or 0.5mg. Where prescriptive rules count.

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milky

#402634 Fri, 10 Aug 07 12:25 AM

"Please don't sleep through this wake-up call.

ISMP Medication Safety Alert! Acute Care Edition. May 2, 2001.

This is an alert from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices informing readers of a fatal medication error that occurred because of a misinterpreted decimal point. The error involved administration of morphine to a 9-month-old infant who received 5 mg instead of 0.5 mg of the drug. The order did not include a zero before the decimal point, and the nurse filling the order overlooked the omission. The child suffered a cardiac arrest and died. The case illustrates the importance of clearly communicating information about medications."

A tragic story, but would you have written 0.5mg or just .5mg? If nonnative student asked you which was "correct" if written, what would you say?

http://psnet.ahrq.gov/resource.aspx?resourceID=1501

milky

Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004

Senior Member (3,149)

Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

MrPedantic

#402637 Fri, 10 Aug 07 12:41 AM

I would say: "For values less than 1, it's customary to include a zero before the decimal point; unless the context is such that the value will never exceed 1."

MrP

MrPedantic

Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004

Veteran Member (12,053)

...opella forensis / adducit febris...

Inchoateknowledge

#402874 Fri, 10 Aug 07 04:25 PM

Hello Milky Wink [;)]

shoddiness kills Sad [:(]

"If nonnative student asked you which was "correct" if written, what would you say?" It is not a matter of language.

Only "0.5" is accepted and adheres to internationally established mathematical and physical conventions.

Inchoateknowledge

Joined on Wed, May 3 2006

Senior Member (2,528)

Beep! Beep! :)

Kooyeen

#402996 Fri, 10 Aug 07 11:20 PM

Hi,
.5??? Yeah, I know sometimes it's written or pronounced that way, but I think it's always (or it should be always) 0.5 in "tech" environments. Or at least I hope so. I'd never leave out a zero... btw, in Italian .5 would make no sense at all, you always need the zero.

Kooyeen

Joined on Thu, Dec 22 2005

Italy

Senior Member (3,973)

If you don't have a sense of humor already, it's about time you buy one.