Abbreviations

An abbreviation with several meanings; most often Bachelor of Arts, and in clinical notes terms such as basilar artery.

The energy the body uses just to stay alive, measured while a person is awake, lying quietly at rest and fasting.

Bacille Calmette-Guérin: a live, weakened bacterium used as a tuberculosis vaccine and as a bladder cancer treatment.

Twice a day: a dosing abbreviation from the Latin bis die, used mainly outside the United States.

A timing direction for a medicine or test: give it before eating, often about 30 minutes before a meal.

A test holding live bacterial spores that are hard to kill, run through a sterilizer and then incubated to show whether the cycle killed them.

Bilevel positive airway pressure: breathing support through a mask that gives one pressure on breathing in and a lower one on breathing out.

A number from 0 to 100, read by sensors on the forehead, that shows how deeply the brain is anesthetized; about 40 to 60 is the usual target.

An abbreviation for "twice a week" that ISMP advises against; write "2 times weekly."

Body mass index: a number worked out from a person's weight and height that sorts weight into categories.

An abbreviation for bone marrow transplant, which replaces damaged marrow with healthy blood-forming stem cells, or for bilateral myringotomy with tubes.

Bachelor of Science in Nursing: a four-year college degree that prepares a person to become a registered nurse.