List of medical abbreviations
Wikimedia list article
Abbreviations are used very frequently in medicine, despite being widely discouraged by the Institute of Safe Medicine Practices and other organizations concerned about patient safety. Abbreviations are especially discouraged when healthcare providers are communicating with patients and when there is a possibility of confusion between similar abbreviations. Some facilities maintain a list of acceptable abbreviations. Abbreviations are sometimes specific to a facility, which means that newer staff may be unfamiliar with them; this becomes a potential source of preventable medical errors.
The Joint Commission and other organizations maintain lists of certain medical abbreviations that should be avoided to prevent mistakes, according to best practices (and in some cases regulatory requirements); these are flagged in the list of abbreviations used in medical prescriptions.
Orthographic styling
Periods (stops)
Periods (stops) are often used in styling abbreviations. Prevalent practice in medicine today is often to forgo them as unnecessary.
Example:
Less common: The diagnosis was C.O.P.D. [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease]
More common: The diagnosis was COPD
Plurals
The prevalent way to represent plurals for medical acronyms and initialisms is simply to affix a lowercase s (no apostrophe).
Example: one OCP, two OCPs [oral contraceptive pills].
Possessives
Possessive forms are not often needed, but can be formed using apostrophe + s.
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