Do I really need all this math for Nursing?

strawberryluv, BSN, RN · Feb 12, 2011

All of those are easy except for precalculus and calculus. I've heard horror stories of people who took calculus. Precalculus was so hard for me only because my teacher could not explain the concept in a way that anyone in the class can understand. I got a B when I took precalculus in high school :[. Anyway, if you are pursing nursing you shouldn't have to take calculus or precalc since nursing deals more with algebraic and statistical maths. Dosage calculations is basically algebra in nature and statistics is for stuff like understanding research studies or understanding graphs and such. In my nursing program, we are only required to take statistics. That is the only math course in the entire program. Thank God.

SakuraMamiya · Feb 12, 2011

Thanks.

mangopeach · Feb 13, 2011

I'm in my first semester of nursing school and the math I've done so far is basic arithmetic. Converting decimals,fractions, converting measurements like grams to milligrams and so forth. We use dimensional analysis for med math problems. We have to get 100% on our med math test. I had a bit of a panic attack when they said you need 100% on the math test but as I started working with the med math problems I realized its pretty simple stuff. Its not calculus. But I'm only in my first semester so I anticipate it getting more complex as we go along, but its still not calculus.

SakuraMamiya · Feb 13, 2011

Thanks.

stitchincricket · Feb 19, 2011

yep, all that our Nursing program does is has you use dimensional analysis for the dosages. Funny thing is that we had to have College Algebra, though. LOL

Anne36, LPN · Feb 19, 2011

Im in Pharmacolgoy right now and we had to pass a math test for this class. I got 100% on my first try and Im terrible at math. Honestly anything over Algebra 1 is overkill. I think more importantly is your basic math and pre-algebra knowledge.