Читать книгу Medicine Management Skills for Nurses - Claire Boyd - Страница 37

As well as being conversant with the route abbreviations, if we are administering drugs we need to keep ourselves updated about changes to drug names, as well as contraindications.

Paracetamol (derived from coal tar; also known as acetaminophen) can now be given by the intravenous route, but is obviously much more expensive than oral paracetamol and has a shorter half‐life. This means that it is less effective over a longer time span and, as pain is considered to be the fifth vital sign, we need to be aware of this when keeping our patients comfortable and pain free.