Ensuring The Insulin Is Insul-out
Hospital, Mississippi, USA | Healthy | November 14, 2017
(I work in the satellite pharmacy at my hospital. A triage technician is always on hand to answer calls and messages from doctors, nurses, and other pharmacists. It’s a difficult job that requires deft technicians: some of the calls they get raise issues that are difficult to resolve, and others are just plain goofy. D5W is short for a stock solution of 5% dextrose sugar in water.)
Triage Tech: *picking up the phone* “Pharmacy, how can I help you?” *pause* “No, ma’am, I don’t believe those two are compatible with each other. ” *pause* “What? No, no, I don’t actually know offhand if the drug would precipitate out or react with the D5W in any way. I could look that up for you, but in this case I really don’t think it’s necessary. ” *pause* “You’re asking me if you can add insulin to D5W” *pause* “You want to infuse your patient with both sugar and insulin at once. Just… please… don’t.”
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