Math calculations test next week, HELP ME!

Nursing Students Student Assist

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Specializes in Cardiac Tele, MICU RN.

Can someone please help me figure this one problem out?

The client is to receive an IVPB of Penicillin 1 Million units every 12 hours. Available is Penicillin 1 million units in 100 ml of IV fluid. The drop factor is 10 gtts/ml. The medication is to infuse in 30 minutes through an IV pump. The nurse would program the infusion rate at how many ml/hour?

I have a math test next week before I start clinicals and I am so nervous that I may not pass this test.

Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

The answer is 200cc/hr. The drop factor of the IV tubing is an insignificant fact because your IV pump is going to be programmed to give a total amount of fluid per hour and will suck what it needs to achieve that from the drip chamber no matter what the drip factor of the drip chamber is. So, if you are going to infuse 100cc over ½ hour, you need to do a ratio to determine how much you would give in an hour. So, the pump will be infusing 200cc over an hour. First convert ½ hour to minutes. Then set up the following ratio:

100cc/30 min = x/60 min à x = 200cc

After 30 minutes your piggyback will be infused as ordered.

the client is to receive an ivpb of penicillin 1 million units every 12 hours. available is penicillin 1 million units in 100 ml of iv fluid. the drop factor is 10 gtts/ml. the medication is to infuse in 30 minutes through an iv pump. the nurse would program the infusion rate at how many ml/hour?

the tricky part of math calculations is that they give you a lot of unnecessary things, so that's why i always use this method b/c you can never go wrong.

always start with labeling what you want to get:

ml =

hr

then always put next what is available (match the top abbreviation with the other top i.e. ml = 100 ml) - i do it this way because now you know that you only want ml/hr so the set of #s that you will multiply it against will need to have a mins in there so you can cancel it out and end up with ml/hr:

ml = 100 ml

hr 30 mins

then convert those minutes to hours:

ml = 100 ml x 60 mins

hr 30 mins 1 hr

cancel the mins out and you get 200 ml/hr...don't forget to always label your results.

i use this method of always started out with what i want and it works for everything gtt/min, ml/hr, tab, cap, ml, etc.

b.

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i hear and i forget

i see and i remember

i do and i understand~ old proverb

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