Lessons · Pharmacy · the parts of a prescription
The parts of a prescription
Every prescription carries the same parts: the patient, the drug and its strength, the quantity to dispense, the sig, the refills, the date it was written and the prescriber.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
A prescription missing one of its parts cannot be filled, and spotting that at the counter takes ten seconds. Spotting it after the label is printed, the claim is run and the patient has gone home takes a phone call, an apology and a second trip.
How to think about it
Read the parts in a fixed order every time, the way you read a form: who, what, how much of it, how to take it, how many times it can come back, and who signed it. A fixed order is what makes a missing part stand out.
Worked example
Drug and strength: 500 mg tabletsWhat it is, and how much is in one of them.
Sig: 1 tab po tidThe directions. This becomes the sentence on the label.
Disp: 30The quantity to dispense: thirty tablets leave the shelf.
Refills: 2Two more fills after this one.
Date written and the prescriber's signatureEvery other date on this fill is counted from the date written.
Your turn
Name the part of a prescription that says how many to hand over.
: 60 means sixty tablets leave the shelf
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Filling from the quantity and ignoring the sig, or from the sig and ignoring the quantity. They are two separate lines and they can disagree, and when they disagree the answer is a phone call to the prescriber, not a choice.