Talk:List of medical abbreviations: Latin abbreviations

Has

Has this page been rechecked by another classicist for correct latin?

Oh dear. This needs to be checked over. Ask 90% of Doctors, at least here in the UK, what 'OD' stands for and hardly any will say right eye (or left I forget which). It refers to ONCE A DAY meds... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom.davey (talk • contribs) 16:04, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Not really a classicist, but a linguist with a fair bit of Latin, I was wondering the same. Some of the anomalies are probably due to prescribers' unfamiliarity with Classical Latin,¹ some to changes from the Classical period,² and perhaps some errors of transcription between the historical sources and the references cited (not v.likely IMHO) or between the references and the article (somewhat more likely, again IMHO).

But this page isn't about Latin; it's about the abbreviations used in medicine, especially in prescriptions. And therefore it doesn't, and shouldn't, concentrate on Classically correct forms but on the forms in actual use.

Notes

1. p.o., po, PO : orally / by mouth / oral administration : per os / nonstandard form per orem

   Per orem would be the expected form if os were a masculine or feminine noun. But as a neuter form, it doesn't change in the accusative case, which per takes, so the correct Latin form is per os.

2. q.o.d., qod : every other day / alternate days : quaque otra die

   Classical would be altera. CL altera > otra in Spanish and maybe other medieval Romance languages

--Thnidu (talk) 23:16, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

RE: OD behind a name means a Doctor of Optometry, more commonly called an Optometrist.In Optometric practice & Ophthalmology OD stands for oculus dexter, which means right eye. OS stands for oculus sinister, which means left eye. OU is ocular universal; both eyes. (At least here in the USA). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.221.101.32 (talk) 21:26, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Abbreviations are ambiguous, because they can stand for more than one expansion. Which is why some of them are considered potentially dangerous in medicine and in prescriptions, as covered in yellow orange and red at List of abbreviations used in medical prescriptions. The fewer letters they include, the more predisposed to ambiguity they become (which is why most 2-letter medical abbreviations have multiple expansions). The thing to do at Wikipedia is not to overwrite one of the expansions with another (as done here); it is to list both of them. And also make it clear that some abbreviations should not be used anyway (spell out instead). Quercus solaris (talk) 23:03, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Oculus uterque, rather than ocular universal, in which neither word is Latin. Another reason (see my comment above) why this isn't a page about Latin: prescribers and pharmacists don't know it anyway. --Thnidu (talk) 23:16, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Q.O.D.

I have corrected «quaque otra die» to «quaque altera die» without providing a reference, which seems reasonable since we aren't sourcing any of the other translations. But I would really like to add a footnote explaining when and why «q.a.d.» (assuming that was ever used) became «q.o.d.». Peter Chastain ^[¡habla!] 18:41, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Source

Maybe this government site could be used as a source(reference) for this article.

https://mn.gov/boards/assets/prescription%20abbreviations_tcm21-26882.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by KennedyBroseguini (talk • contribs) 22:11, 29 June 2022 (UTC)