Medical protocol can refer to:
- medical guidelines for a medical treatment. It usually includes a treatment plan, summarized consensus statements and addresses practical issues.
- Clinical protocol, which has a more specific meaning. It describes a method to be used in a clinical trial (e.g. of a drug or medical treatment) or a medical research study.
- A set of rules followed by providers such as EMTs or nurses. Often considered to be stricter than a guideline, and to carry more weight with the law, but there is no hard evidence to support this view and the terms are usually used interchangeably.
Famous quotes containing the word medical:
“There may perhaps be a new generation of doctors horrified by lacerations, infections, women who have douched with kitchen cleanser. What an irony it would be if fanatics continued to kill and yet it was the apathy and silence of the medical profession that most wounded the ability to provide what is, after all, a medical procedure.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)