Ugh, the dreaded Pharmacology starts next week..Advice?? (m)

[pink2blue1]

We have our fundamentals final on Thursday. Not so much worried about that. Fundamentals has goen weel so far. But I am totally worried about Pharm! We have to pass with 85% or we are out of the program. Now, it starts with 4 days of Medical Math which is what we start next Friday. We also have to pass Medical Math with 85% or we don't move onto Pharm, which again means we are done with the program. How hard is this math??? Where can I find practice formulas and stuff? The instructor we are going to have for Pharm says it's nothing more that Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, but doing it in formulas like figuring dosages, drip rates and stuff. For some reason I am PARANOID! Nursing is my dream and to think if I don't make an 85% I'm done, it will devastate me! Help, advice??

After we finish Pharm we start clinical.

Shannon

[1Tulip]

I have long since forgotten the handy dandy formula they tried to teach me. But generally it comes down to figuring out one unknown. I mean... The drug comes to the unit as 10 mg/ml. The order is to give 8 mg IM. So what volume would you give?

We used to have to figure out drip rates for IV's. If you know how many gtts are equal to 1 ml (different manufacturers' drip chambers produce different size drops), you know how many ml's are ordered per hour. Convert that to ml's per minute, convert that to drops per minute. (Nice that most IV's are run by pumps, eh?)

I think you may occassionally (rarely) have to figure a dose by the patient's body surface area, or convert a pt's weight into Kg. But you look that sort of stuff up on a chart. You don't calculate it.

I don't think it should be overwhelming. Best of luck!