Another med calculation question

Nursing Students General Students

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I don't know why im having such a hard time with this, all of a sudden.

I'm pretty sure my problem is that I never really learned dimensional analysis.

Here's the question. I don't understand what goes where, but more important, I don't understand WHY they go where they do. Any explanation would be greatly appreciated.

6. Order: A heparin drip is infusing at 20 ml/hr.

Drug Label: Heparin 25,000 units in 500 mL of D5W

At this rate, how many units of heparin per hour are being delivered?

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

It might be easier for you to think of this last problem another way.

If I'm infusing 50mL over 30 minutes, how much would I be infusing over 60 minutes? That is really what the question is asking.

I totally get that part, I know I could just multiply 50 x 2 to get 100.

Thanks for all of your help. :)

I'm pretty sure my problem is that I never really learned dimensional analysis.

You don't HAVE to use dimensional analysis. For some people, it is more confusing and it is hard to keep track of which number represents what. You can always figure it out logically, just keep converting and converting and converting...

and then always take your answer and figure it backwards

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