What's in a name? Apparently, a lot of laughter if you happen to be in the medical profession and you are watching us non-medically educated individuals attempt to pronounce some of the drug names that we are prescribed by our doctors.  

Pharmacist Filling A Prescription
Pharmacist Filling A Prescription
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Let’s face it, I totally get it when it comes to naming pharmaceuticals. Those chemically-based names are hard to pronounce for medical professionals so I can only imagine the trepidation that regular folks would have when it comes to asking about the medicine in front of their doctors.  

That’s why drug companies spend not only millions of dollars on research but also spend millions of dollars on marketing. That’s why you can sing along with "Oh Oh Oh..Ozempic" or you know that when you see "a man and a woman sitting outside in separate bathtubs" you're going to hear something about a bodily function lasting “more than four hours”. 

attachment-tim faith 1883 bathtub scene 2
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The world of medicine, including the creation and prescribing of medicine, is not the place for those of us who didn’t excel in reading to hang out. In fact, even those who know a thing or two about the way letters fit together can have their own issues pronouncing some of these vital and not so vital medicines. 

While this all seems a bit amusing at first blush, it could lead to a serious issue. If a patient tells a nurse or doctor that they are taking a medication and they mispronounce it or the medical professional misunderstands what they are trying to say.  This could lead to the wrong medicine being prescribed or the wrong dosage.  

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iStock
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That’s why so many of our medical professionals have not only learned the proper name for these medications but they’ve taken the time to learn our most common mispronunciations for these pills and elixirs.

We asked some of our favorite friends from the nursing community to offer up their finest funnies. Remember, they're not making fun, they're making funny which is sometimes the only way we can deal with the stress of the impending medical diagnosis. Let’s see how many of these fairly common medications you can figure out based on their” street pronunciation”.  

Karsten Winegeart via Unsplash.com
Karsten Winegeart via Unsplash.com
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By the way a tip of the hat to several South Louisiana nurses who offered up their favorite "mispronunciation" so that we could play along.

10 Widely Used And Widely Mispronounced Medications

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