Understand sig codes — the marks on your drug prescriptions that tell the pharmacist what it is you’re getting, what it does, and when it should be taken.

I had always believed, incorrectly it turns out, that doctors wrote real words on prescriptions, and I was merely terrible at reading what they wrote. In reality, they were using sig codes, which is like shorthand, and it’s rather important for pharmacists to know what they stand for—especially since I could easily see a “B” getting mistaken for a “D,” or an “E” being mistaken for an “F.”

So let’s start with something simple. If it’s only a single code that you’re looking to define, no problem. Many sig codes are abbreviations of Latin, so the sig code BID means “bis in die,” or twice per day. We also provide similarly written codes and their descriptions. (Darn it, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a linguist.)

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