Medication Labels

Pay attention to labels

Many medications are labeled with critical information: drug name, route, concentration, dose, preparation instructions, expiration date, and storage

In this section we will look over several examples to quickly find the information we are looking for

Here is an example of linezolid, an antibiotic (note the expiration has been removed for training purposes):

Here is furosemide, a diuretic (expiration left on as an example):

Try these practice problems:

In this label for Zocor, what is the brand vs. generic name for the drug?  What is the dose?

Zocor is brand name, Simvasatin is generic name, Dose is 40 mg

For the Amoxil label, what is the concentration when reconstituted?  What is the total amount when reconstituted?  How many 125 mg doses are there in total?

The concentration is 125 mg/5ml, there is a total of 100 ml when reconstituted, if each 125 mg dose takes 5 ml, then there are 20 doses- 100 ml/5 ml per dose = 20 doses

For this Atropine label, what routes are allowed?

Subcutaneous (SC or SQ), intramuscular (IM), and intravenous (IV)

What is the concentration of this Lidocaine?

10 mg/ml

Make sure to read the labels very carefully before preparing the dose.  It can be easy to miss an important detail if you don't pay attention.  Next we will look at IV rates and drop factors