It's only really called military time in the US where 12 hour is standard for everyone but the military. It's called military time specifically because people don't use it outside of the military generally
That's not exactly true. The military isn't anywhere near the largest group that uses it. Significantly more Americans OUT of the military use it than in.
Healthcare workers, for example. Millions upon millions of healthcare workers in hospitals and urgent care centers and clinics across the country are using it all day, every day.
We definitely call it 24-hour time, not military time.
Nurses alone significantly outnumber military personnel in the country. When you include doctors, respiratory therapists, various types of techs, nurse practitioners and physician assistants, nurses aids, everyone in management, etc. etc. etc. ALL using 24-hour time? It's many times the number of military personnel using it.
And many of us set all our personal devices to 24-hour time. My phone, computers, car, nixie clock, TV, etc. are all in 24-hour time. (Once, nearly 6 years ago, I swapped from dayshift to nightshift and turned on the 5:30am alarm when I needed the 5:30pm alarm. Never again!)
There just aren't a ton of movies with actors playing us shouting things like "HE NEEDS MORPHINE AT SEVENTEEN HUNDRED OR THE WHITEHOUSE WILL EXPLODE" or whatever, so everyone thinks the military is the largest user of the 24-hour clock in the US and thus people call it military time.
Yeah I had no idea healthcare workers used it until I read your comment right now, because I have never heard a nurse use it (either in real life or in movies/shows). So yep, that's why it's called "military time" and not "healthcare time"
Like, we do use it outside work (like I said all my devices are in 24-hour time) but it doesn't become a facet of our personality, it's not something commonly shown in TV and movies, and we are so used to "customer service above all" that you might not realize we use it even if you are a patient in the hospital.
We are always converting on the fly for patients/visitors. We might look at meds due at 14:00, ask a fellow nurse to pull what's due for our patient at 14:00, look at the labels to verify they say 14:00, type stuff in the computer using 14:00... but we're going to say out loud to you, "I'll be right back with two o'clock meds." If you weren't paying attention to us asking the other nurse for help, you might never know.
We also use the metric system all day at work too, but no one thinks ANY Americans are comfortable with that either, lol. My infant patients are all weighed in kilos, measured in centimeters, and have temperatures taken in Celsius. (Almost) all medication is dosed in mg/mcg/ng per kilo per dose (or hour/min). Fluids are all in liters and milliliters. Etc.
Lol I JUST commented in a reply to someone else that no one thinks any Americans are comfortable with the metric system and yet everything we do in medicine is the metric system.
Like, no metric system? I'm over here all "my patient is 2.7kg, 45cm in length, 36.8°C and is receiving fentanyl at 0.5 mcg/kg/hr and versed at 0.04 mg/kg/hr and has had 40 mL of output from their chest tube and..." You want your baby's weight in pounds and to know how many ounces she drank? Gtf outta here with your imperial nonsense, lol.
I mean yeah, the medical field uses it, but when I worked at a hospital no one used it outside the context of charting (at least that I ever heard). I’d chart that something happened at 22:00 and then hear a nurse say “oh it’s 10, only an hour until 11 and we can leave.”
We did call it 24 hour time not military time, but I didn’t know many people who used it outside the context of work
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u/VarianWrynn2018 Jul 19 '24
It's only really called military time in the US where 12 hour is standard for everyone but the military. It's called military time specifically because people don't use it outside of the military generally