Pharmacology

A short-acting drug that reverses nondepolarizing muscle relaxants by blocking the enzyme that breaks down acetylcholine.

The ability of a drug or treatment to produce the effect it is meant to have.

Breaking large drops of fat into tiny droplets spread through a liquid, as bile salts do to fats in the small intestine.

A mixture of two liquids that do not normally mix, such as oil and water, held together by an emulsifier; propofol is the best-known one in surgery.

A low-molecular-weight heparin, injected under the skin, that prevents and treats blood clots.

By way of the digestive tract, such as by mouth or through a feeding tube into the stomach or intestine.

Relating to the intestines.

A drug, given by IV injection, that raises blood pressure and heart rate.

Pain relief or numbness from an anesthetic drug given through a thin catheter into the space just outside the covering of the spinal cord.

A hormone and drug, also called adrenaline, that raises heart rate and blood pressure and opens the airways.

A man-made form of erythropoietin, the kidney hormone that tells the bone marrow to make red blood cells.

Vitamin D2: a form of vitamin D taken by mouth to treat or prevent vitamin D deficiency.

An ergot drug that narrows blood vessels, taken at the start of a migraine or cluster headache to stop it.

An abbreviation, symbol or way of writing a dose that has been misread and led to medication errors, as listed by ISMP.

A macrolide antibiotic, also given to newborns as an eye ointment to prevent eye infection.

A hormone made mainly by the kidneys that tells the bone marrow to make red blood cells.

An SSRI antidepressant used for depression and generalized anxiety disorder.

A proton pump inhibitor: a drug that sharply lowers the amount of acid the stomach makes.

One of the two chemical families of local anesthetic, broken down in the blood and more likely than amides to cause allergy; tetracaine and cocaine are esters.

A female sex hormone, made mainly by the ovaries, and the group of drugs that act like it.

An oral antitubercular drug used with other drugs to treat tuberculosis.

A fast IV drug that puts patients to sleep with very little effect on the heart and blood pressure, chosen for unstable patients.

A progestin hormone used in a birth control implant placed under the skin of the upper arm.

At two-hour intervals, around the clock unless the order says otherwise; written q2h.

A timing direction meaning once in each 60 minutes, abbreviated "qh" from the Latin quaque hora.

To get rid of waste from the body, in urine, stool, sweat or breath.

The removal of wastes, or of a drug and its breakdown products, from the body.

The date after which a drug, supply or product should no longer be used.

The leaking of an IV drug that damages tissue (a vesicant) out of the vein into the surrounding tissue.