Dosage Calc.

Nursing Students General Students

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ok. so we are going to have at least one question like this, this coming monday on the test.

the problem is i dont get it. we never went over on how to do these iv calculations.

if someone could show me how to do it. that would be great!

[color=#666600]18.the patient is admitted to the labor and delivery unit for a medical induction of labor. the physician orders a continuous infusion of pitocin to begin at 4 mu/min. the iv bag is 1000 ml lr with 20 units of pitocin. how many ml/hr will you infuse the pitocin using and infusion pump?

[color=#999900]

a. 2

b. 3

c. 6

d. 12

the answer is d. 12. i keep getting 12000 as the answer:confused:

well....if the answer is truly 12, you are closer than i am, lol. I get 5...

show how you are setting it up.....

If I understand the question correctly the Pitocin is running at 4 milliunits per min. It looks like you need to convert the milliunits to units first, this would be .004 units because 1 unit = 1000 milliunits.

Now lets do the math.

.004 x 60min = .24 units per hour

.24 x 1000mL = 240

240 / 20units = 12

Charlie

Let me know if you need a better explaination of the math. I did not put the math in detail because I suspect that you did not convert the milliunits to units based on your answer of 12000.

Good luck on the test.

yup, except to avoid the dec., convert the units to miliunits.....20000/1000 : 240/x

the 240 is were i went wrong....thanks

That works also. I prefer to change to the units asked for in the question, just the way I like to do it. I use ratio and proportion but many use the formula method. Makes no difference as long as you come up with the correct answer.

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