Labs related to medications- Nursing School question (RN student)

[Laurby92]

Hi everyone, I'm currently a nursing student in a med-surg. clinical. I have been studying medications and labs endlessly it seems (and it won't stop). Joys of nursing school! That's ok I know it is important! :) Anyway my drug manual tells me side effects, what labs are affected by this medication etc. I am wondering if anyone knows of a good reference or reference manual that helps you to relate labs that you should be looking at before you give a medication (for example you should know potassium level before you administer lasix etc.). That is not found in the drug manual that I have but what labs are affected is, I guess they kind of go hand-in-hand but if anyone can recommend an awesome reference I would be grateful! :)

[SierraBravo]

I don't know of a reference like you asked about, but if you think about the MOA of a drug you can deduce which labs might be important to look at. For example, how do statins work? Statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors. Where does HMG-CoA reductase work? In the liver. Therefore, you would want to primarily look at LFT's when speaking about statins. Of course, if a patient has side effects such as myalgia then you need to also look at CK as well as a CMP to evaluate BUN & SCr.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

micromedex and Good RX are two phone apps I use. I am sure there are others.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

LOVE micromedex....this is a good one as well. Clinicians ultimate guide to drug therapy