Dosage Calculation Question

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Hello! I'm working on a review for my second semester of nursing school, and I'm stuck on an IV calculation problem. Here it is:

"Your client has 1 liter of D5 1/2NSS infusing at 100mL/hr into a #22 gauge adapted angiocath via an IV pump. The IV was started at 0800. What time do you expect it to be infused? Show your calculations."

So, I know that 1 liter = 1000mL, and if the IV is started at 0800 to infuse at 100mL/hr, than it will take 10 hours for the liter to infuse, so it should be complete by 1800.

I'm confused by the "#22 gauge adapted angiocath via an IV pump" portion of the problem. Is this a distractor, or does it affect flow rate and therefore I need to do a different type of calculation?

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Specializes in Case Management, ICU, Telemetry.

They put in the "22ga" and specific pump to throw you off :) 100ml/hr is 100/hr no matter what kind of pump or catheter.

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

Nope. That is extra information that they give you. It means nothing. The trick of these questions is to sort out what infomation that is pertinent and the information that makes no difference.

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Thank you so much for replying and helping me out! Although we began exploring IV calculations at the end of the first semester, it was just a beginning and we'll really dive into it next week in the second semester. I'm glad they gave us material to review prior to going back because that math test rears it's head right away and I want to be ready! Love All Nurses community and all the help available here!

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

What they said....:)

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Specializes in Ortho, Case Management, blabla.

If I was a nursing school instructor I'd write the most amazing questions.

"There are ten clowns in a clowncar that just came from the circus and they ate lots of cotton candy. Suddenly, Bobo the sad clown states that he feels unusually thirsty. His best friend, Shakes the Clown, a famous rodeo clown, checks Bobos blood sugar via fingerstick and it is 322. Bobo has a 100 unit vial of humalog insulin in his pocket and a 24 gauge insulin needle that can hold 50 units. He doses his insulin on a sliding scale formula, Glucose - 100 / 40 = xUnits. Bobo explains to Shakes how to draw up the insulin and preferable injection locations. How many clowns were in the car?"

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
If I was a nursing school instructor I'd write the most amazing questions.

"There are ten clowns in a clowncar that just came from the circus and they ate lots of cotton candy. Suddenly, Bobo the sad clown states that he feels unusually thirsty. His best friend, Shakes the Clown, a famous rodeo clown, checks Bobos blood sugar via fingerstick and it is 322. Bobo has a 100 unit vial of humalog insulin in his pocket and a 24 gauge insulin needle that can hold 50 units. He doses his insulin on a sliding scale formula, Glucose - 100 / 40 = xUnits. Bobo explains to Shakes how to draw up the insulin and preferable injection locations. How many clowns were in the car?"

:roflmao:
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Specializes in Ortho, Case Management, blabla.
:roflmao:

I think that was word for word one of the questions I got on the NCLEX.

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Specializes in NICU.

That is like "An airliner crashes in the Mississippi River. What state are the survivors buried?" You don't bury survivors or "You are in a house where all the windows face south. You see a bear outside the house. What color is the bear?" white, you are on the north pole.

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You will find that a lot of your classmates will take a formula for doing dosage calculations and plug in every number on the page into them, even if they aren't needed (you very correctly sussed this out on your original post. cc/hour = cc/hour no matter how it gets in there). The people who write the questions know this and and pick distractors (wrong answers) that would result if the number of clowns got plugged in there somewhere, and the unwary and the unclear will pick one of them.

You, on the other hand, will realize what's really being asked, and will be able to do more of those than you think in your head, or, at worst, with very simple arithmetic (not "math").

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Specializes in SRNA.
If I was a nursing school instructor I'd write the most amazing questions.

"There are ten clowns in a clowncar that just came from the circus and they ate lots of cotton candy. Suddenly, Bobo the sad clown states that he feels unusually thirsty. His best friend, Shakes the Clown, a famous rodeo clown, checks Bobos blood sugar via fingerstick and it is 322. Bobo has a 100 unit vial of humalog insulin in his pocket and a 24 gauge insulin needle that can hold 50 units. He doses his insulin on a sliding scale formula, Glucose - 100 / 40 = xUnits. Bobo explains to Shakes how to draw up the insulin and preferable injection locations. How many clowns were in the car?"

This is great November!

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I'm confused by the "#22 gauge adapted angiocath via an IV pump" portion of the problem. Is this a distractor, or does it affect flow rate and therefore I need to do a different type of calculation?
Try this out...

Rather than thinking "does it affect flow rate and therefore I need to do a different type of calculation," think, "How could this affect the problem and, DOES IT SAY THAT?"

They told you that "your client has 1 liter of D5 1/2NSS infusing at 100mL/hr" so the rate is what it is... the pump is running at 100mL/hr irrespective of what it's flowing into... a 14ga, a 24 ga, or with no angiocath at all...

If you really want to break it down, the pump is generating a higher pressure with a 22 vs a 14 in order to maintain a rate of 100mL/hr but the rate is given in the problem statement.

Don't read anything into the problem.

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