Abbreviations

Medical assistant: a trained worker in clinics and offices who does clinical and office tasks under a provider's direction.

An event, such as a plane crash, an explosion or a building collapse, with more victims than local health care services can handle.

Holding the upper and lower jaws closed together in the correct bite, with wires or bands between bars on the teeth.

Microgram: one millionth of a gram, or one thousandth of a milligram.

A hormone made by cells in the zone between the two lobes of the pituitary that makes melanocytes produce more melanin, darkening the skin.

Milliequivalent: a unit for the amount of an electrolyte, based on its electrical charge.

Milligram: one thousandth of a gram.

Milligrams per deciliter: a unit that shows how much of a substance is in one tenth of a liter of blood or fluid.

The chemical shorthand for magnesium sulfate, banned from medication orders by the Joint Commission.

An abbreviation with more than one meaning, most often mental health or malignant hyperthermia; the setting shows which.

Major histocompatibility complex: a group of genes that make the markers cells use to show the immune system what is self and what is not.

An abbreviation most often meaning myocardial infarction (heart attack); it can also mean mitral insufficiency or motivational interviewing.

A unit of volume equal to one thousandth of a liter, the same as one cubic centimeter.

The weakest strength at which a disinfectant still works; for a drug, the lowest blood level that gives the wanted effect.

Milliliters per hour: the unit for how fast an IV fluid, infusion or tube feeding runs.

Millimeters of mercury: the unit used to measure blood pressure and the pressure of gases in the blood.

Millimole: a unit for an amount of a substance, often given per liter of blood (mmol/L) in lab results.

An anesthesia service in which an anesthesia provider gives sedation and pain drugs and watches the patient, ready to convert to general anesthesia.

Milliosmole: a unit for the number of dissolved particles in a fluid, used for osmolality.

An abbreviation with two meanings: magnetic resonance angiography, or mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist.

Messenger RNA: a molecule that carries a gene's instructions from DNA to the parts of the cell that build proteins.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a staph bacterium that many common antibiotics cannot kill.

An abbreviation that can stand for morphine sulfate, magnesium sulfate or multiple sclerosis.

The shorthand for morphine sulfate, banned from medication orders by the Joint Commission.

Military sexual trauma: sexual assault or repeated sexual harassment that happened during military service.

An abbreviation for methotrexate; ISMP advises writing the full drug name.

Motor vehicle accident: a crash involving a car, truck or other road vehicle.

Micromoles per liter: a unit for how much of a substance is in a liter of fluid, used on many lab reports.