Getting a medication dose “right” is critical to preventing medication errors!
Most medication doses are measured in the metric system. Medication doses are
measured in grams, milligrams, and micrograms. Let’s think about how would we make a 1 gram pill.

We are going to make a chocolate chip pill. To make this pill we need two ingredients.
First - we need the chocolate chips or the active ingredient – Second, we need the inactive ingredients or fillers – such as sugar, flour, eggs and milk.
To make our chocolate chip pill – we are going to measure out 1 Gram of Chocolate Chips. We are going to mix this one gram of chocolate Chips into the batter of inactive ingredients and turn it into a cookie. It does not matter how much batter we use – it doesn’t matter how big or small the resulting cookie is.
*****The only thing that matters is that 1 gram of chocolate chips was put into one cookie***
Math Reminder: 1 gram is the same as 1000 milligram (mg) and 1 mg is the same as 1000 mcg
Because we put 1 Gram of Chocolate Chips into this cookie pill – we can confidently say

That the dosage on this cookie is 1 gram of chocolate chips
Let us say that we only eat half of this cookie – what is the Chocolate Chip dosage on half a cookie? ½ a cookie would equal ½ gram or 500 mg or 5000mcg. 1 gram is a big pill, 500 mg is about the size of a Tylenol tablet and a micro gram is a small pill.
Now we want some chocolate milk to go with our chocolate chip cookie. How much chocolate or active ingredients is the dose in a liquid medication?

To make our chocolate milk we are going to measure out 1 gram chocolate chips and melt it into 1 ounce of milk or inactive ingredients.
Math Reminder: 1 ounce is equal to 30ml (milliliters) or 30 cc(cubic centimeter) or 2 tablespoon. One teaspoon equals 5 CC, 1 tablespoon = 15 cc, 1 tsp = 5 CC
Because we put 1 Gram of Chocolate Chips into 1 ounce or 30 ml – we can confidently say that in order to consume 1 Gm of chocolate Chips we need to drink 1 ounce or 30 ml.
If we only wanted to consume ½ gram chocolate chips, we would drink how much milk?

If you ate half of a 1 gram chocolate chip cookie and drink a whole ounce of 1 gram chocolate chip milk – how much chocolate chips would you have consumed?
Half a gram plus one gram equals 1.5 grams or 1500 mg.
Another example – if you took one 325 mg Tylenol pill and drank 1 tablespoon of liquid Tylenol containing 325 mg of Tylenol in one tablespoon – how much Tylenol would you have consumed? 650mg!
I hope that this helps you understand how to make sure you are getting the medication dose”right”!!!
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