"Emergency-medicine Residents Often Miscalculate IV Doses for Kids" - Will Boggs, MD
Emergency-medicine residents often miscalculate doses for a variety of intravenous medications used to treat children, according to new findings. Under- or over-dosing of pediatric medication can have devastating consequences, but there are few data on the frequency of resident dosing errors in pediatric-care settings. William Bonadio, MD, professor of emergency medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai reviewed 500 consecutive IV orders for a broad range of medications placed by emergency-medicine residents in the pediatric emergency-medicine department in 2018. One in five orders had calculations that deviated from recommended dosing by more than 10 percent, he reports in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. "Pediatric emergency departments with emergency medicine resident training programs should be particularly cognizant of the potential for medication dosing errors, and promote oversight measures to decrease risk for miscalculation," he concluded.
— William Bonadio, MD, Professor, Emergency Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai