Medical Office Pharmacology: Review For Medical Assistant Students and Professionals
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For medical assistants who need to brush up on certain areas in pharmacology as it applies to a medical office.
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Roman Numerals On A Prescription...
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The need for trained medical assistants remains at an all-time high! At any given moment thousands of job offers for medical assistants and other healthcare professionals open and close! Most require knowledge of certain medical office procedures and basic principles of pharmacology.
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Roman Numerals On A Prescription
In order to write, read, and fill out prescriptions the healthcare professional must understand Roman numerals. Roman numerals are commonly used in pharmacology, especially when it comes to the Sig on prescriptions.
For example:
Take three tablets three times a day is often written as III tabs t.i.d.
The main differences between Roman and Arabic numerals are that Roman numerals lack a symbol for zero, and that numeral placement within a number can sometimes indicate subtraction rather than addition.
I
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The easiest way to write a roman number is to mark that many lines down - they look like little I's. Thus I means 1, II means 2, III means 3. However, four strokes seemed like too many....
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V
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So the Romans moved on to the symbol for 5 - V. Placing I in front of the V — or placing any smaller number in front of any larger number — indicates subtraction. So I before V as in IV means 4. After V comes a series of additions - VI means 6, VII means 7, VIII means 8.
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X
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X means 10. But what about 9? Same thing. IX means to subtract I from X, leaving 9. Numbers in the teens, twenties and thirties follow the same rule as the first set, only with X's indicating the number of tens. So XXXI is 31, and XXIV is 24.
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L
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L means 50. Based on what you've learned, I bet you can figure out what 40 is. You guessed it right, that's XL, since 10 subtracted from 50 is 40. And thus 60, 70, and 80 are LX, LXX and LXXX.
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C
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C stands for centum, the Latin word for 100. A century lasts 100 years. We still use this word in "cent" (one hundredth of a dollar) and centimeter (one hundredth of a meter). The subtraction rule means 90 is written as XC. Like the X's and L's, the C's are tacked on to the beginning of numbers to indicate how many hundreds there are: CCCLXIX is 369.
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D
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D stands for 500. As you can probably guess by this time, CD means 400. So CDXLVIII is 448. (See why we switched systems?)
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M
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M is 1,000. You see a lot of Ms because Roman numerals are used a lot to indicate dates. For instance, if you know someone that was born in 1998 then that year is written as MCMXCVIII.
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V
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Larger numbers were indicated by putting a horizontal line over them, which meant to multiply the number by 1,000. Hence the
V on the left has a line over the top, which means 5,000. This usage is no longer current, because the largest numbers usually expressed in the Roman system are dates, as discussed above.
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* adapted from Nova Roma on Roman Numerals under Fair Use.
Roman to Ariabic Numbers
I = 1
II = 2
III = 3
IV = 4
V = 5
VI = 6
VII = 7
VIII = 8
IX = 9
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X = 10
XX = 20
XXX = 30
XL = 40
L = 50
LX = 60
LXX = 70
LXXX = 80
XC = 90
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C = 100
CC = 200
CCC = 300
CCCC = 400
D = 500
DC = 600
DCC = 700
DCCC = 800
CM = 900
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M = 1000
MM = 2000
MMM = 3000
MMMM = 4000
V = 5000
VM = 6000
VMM = 7000
VMMM = 8000
MX = 9000
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X = 10000
XX = 20000
XXX = 30000
XXXX = 40000
L = 50000
LX = 60000
LXX = 70000
LXXX = 80000
XC = 90000
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C = 100000
CC = 200000
CCC = 300000
CCCC = 400000
D = 500000
DC = 600000
DCC = 700000
DCCC = 800000
CM = 900000
M = 1000000
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Take the Roman Numeral Challenge at Fact Monster
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To report illegal prescription drug sales and/or rogue pharmacies operating on the Internet call the anonymous Pharmaceutical Drug Abuse Hotline: 1-877-RxAbuse (1-877-792-2873).
More info at: DEA Website
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CONSUMER ALERT:
Buying drugs online may be illegal!
Federal law prohibits buying controlled substances such as narcotic pain relievers (e.g., OxyContin®, Vicodin ®), sedatives (e.g., Valium®, Xanax®, Ambien®), stimulants (e.g., phentermine, phendimetrazine, Adderall®, Ritalin®) and anabolic steroids (e.g., Winstrol®, Equipoise®) without a valid prescription from a doctor. This means there must be a bonafide doctor-patient relationship, which by most state laws requires a physical examination to receive a prescription. Prescriptions written by "cyber doctors" relying on online questionnaires are not legitimate under the law.
Buying controlled substances online without a valid prescription may be punishable by imprisonment under Federal law and it is a felony to import drugs into the United States and ship to a non-DEA registrant.
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