Dosage Calc

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I am a student in my last quarter of nursing school, and I am usually ok with dosage calculations but this one has me stumped. Can anyone help explain this to me, please?

"The doctor ordered a dobutamine infusion at 10/mcg/kg/min. The patient weighs 180lbs. You're supplied with a 250mL bag of Dobutamine that reads 2mg/mL. How long will it take for the infusion to complete?"

I took 180/2.2= 81.81 kgs x 10mcg = 818.18 mcg/min

The bag has 250mL x 2mg = 500mg per bag or 50000 mcg per bag.

50000 / 818.18 = 61.11 min (So just over an hour)

My answer key says the correct answer is 10 hours 25 min

Where did I go wrong?

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

How many micrograms are in a milligram?

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How many micrograms are in a milligram?

Thank you so much. I dropped a 0 some how and didn't even realize it. I have been going over and over this problem and re-checking my math. I even typed it here and didn't realize it should be 500,000.

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Specializes in Med-Tele; ED; ICU.

If you want to avoid issues like this in the future, don't use the zeroes but rather use powers of ten (e.g. 10^3, 10^-3, 10^-6, etc.). It's much harder to transcribe incorrectly and easier to spot if you do.

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