Mentioned in this episode

NaPodPoMo

Pronounce Drug Names Like a Pro Online Course

ISMP's List of Confused Drug Names

State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy November 2020 Newsletter

I'm publishing one podcast episode per day in the month of November 2020 as part of a challenge called NaPodPoMo. It stands for National Podcast Post Month. November is National Podcast Post Month, and the goal of the challenge is 30 podcast episodes in 30 days. This is a bite-sized episode, which I'm using to help promote my new online course: Pronounce Drug Names Like a Pro.

Have you ever heard of the curse of knowledge? It's a cognitive bias. Sometimes, when someone knows a lot about something, they assume others know what they know. For example, when I joined my husband's fantasy football league years ago, everyone assumed I knew about bye weeks, free agency, the waiver wire, the IR list, and checking my roster for last-minute injuries before setting my line-up every week. In the early days, I didn't check my fantasy football line-up on-time, so I accidentally started players who were on bye weeks. I lost a few match-ups, but I learned quickly and won some games.

The curse of knowledge happens with drug names too. It's dangerous to believe that everyone knows what we know. We can learn from someone else's mistake, near miss, or other event.

The ISMP publishes The List of Confused Drug Names. The list contains look-alike and sound-alike (LASA) drug name pairs. Some drug names on the list have "tall man" or "mixed case letters," which makes it easy to spot the differences in their appearance. Just being aware of look alike and sound alike drug names could save a life. In Pronounce Drug Names Like a Pro, I include some listening practice using the ISMP's list of confused drug names so my students are aware of potential errors.