BBC NEWS | Health | Medical abbreviations 'pose risk'
Doctors are being warned that using abbreviations in medical notes is putting patients' lives at risk.The UK's Medical Defence Union said difficulties often arose because abbreviations can have more than one meaning or might be misread.
Some patients have had the wrong limb removed or operated on and others have been given deadly drug doses, it said.
A recent US study of 30,000 medication errors, some fatal, showed 5% were linked to abbreviations in notes.
There are some disturbing stories from Britain as well
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