Editing Micro- (section)

==Other abbreviating conventions==
In some [[health care]] institutions, house rules deprecate the standard symbol for [[microgram]], "μg", in prescribing or chart recording, because of the risk of giving an incorrect dose because of the misreading of poor handwriting.<ref name="Tietz_PT2241">{{Citation |last1=Burtis |first1=Carl A. |last2=Ashwood |first2=Edward R. |last3=Bruns |first3=David E. |year=2012 |title=Tietz Textbook of Clinical Chemistry and Molecular Diagnostics |publisher=Elsevier Health Sciences |isbn=978-1455759422 |edition=5th |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BBLRUI4aHhkC&pg=PT2241 |postscript=.}}</ref> The two alternatives are to abbreviate as "mcg"<ref name="Tietz_PT2241"/><ref name="ISMP_2021"/> or to write out "microgram" in full (see also [[List of abbreviations used in medical prescriptions]]). The alternative abbreviation may be ambiguous in rare circumstances in that ''mcg'' could also be read as a ''micrigram'', i.e. 10<sup>−14</sup> g; however the prefix ''[[micri-|micri]]'' is not standard, nor widely known, and is considered obsolete. This deprecation, focused on avoiding incorrect dosing in contexts where handwriting is often present, does not extend to all health-care contexts and institutions (for example, some clinical laboratories' reports adhere to it, whereas others do not<ref name="Tietz_PT2241"/>), and in [[physical sciences]] research, "μg" remains the sole official abbreviation.

In medical data exchange according to the [[Health Level 7]] (HL7) standard, the μ can be replaced by u as well.<ref name="HL7_2015"/>