Drug calculations in your head or calculator?

[gumby1411]

I'm starting my ABSN program next month and just learned that we have a drug calc quiz on the first day (yikes!). Anyway, I started reviewing basic drug calcs and the book I'm using writes everything out long hand. At your school, are you required to do your drug calcs in your head or can you use a calculator? I'm terrible at math in my head.

[Cherish]

My school all drug calculations are done WITHOUT a calculator. There is drug calc questions on most tests too all you get is a paper and pencil that's it. It's amazing how many people don't know their long division and fractions. If elementary school kids can do it, then I know I can and even in elementary school we didn't use calculators until we started pre algebra in the 6th grade. Dimensional analysis is not hard its pretty common sense.

[Mudminkk]

My school let us use a simple calculator, nothing fancy. (They checked our calculators before the test.)

But we were still mandated to show our work, and our answers had to be in the right form that was asked in the question. (Like milliliters or mgs, etc.)

I found it funny that it took a $80-100 calculator to get me through Stats and into the nursing program, but a $1 calculator is all I can use now!

[heartnursing]

Solving in your head is (6 X 7 and you say 42).

You are not allowed to write out the problem and solve? Are you saying like patient needs 50 mg of med and the bottle is 25 mg/tablet. You select A,B,C,D and one answer is I will give two tablets. Yes, you can do this in your head very quickly.

Pt. needs 150mL of D5W in 1 hr. The drop factor is 15 gtt/mL. You then pick a ABCD answer and solve this in your head as well?

I find this odd they would not let you write out the equation/problem and solve it?

gtt/min = 150mL/60 X 15gtt/mL I see many med errors occuring if this is computed in our head only and you would have to round correctly. Yes, I could come up with the problem in my head and say 150/4 but I would still want to write it out to make sure I calculate it correctly on paper.

IMO, this is where med errors will happen. I wasn't allowed a calculator on the nurse entrance exam, but you got to use scratch paper and that didn't involve meds for people.

We can write anything we want but we are just not allowed to use a calculator and that applies for IV math aswell..

Does the NCLEX let you use calculators?

I have to write the CRNE (Im in Canada) RN BScN program and they aswell dont permit calculators on the exam..

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

The NCLEX has a little pop-up calculator on the screen.

As for calculators for nursing school, just a basic four-function calculator would suffice. Most classes don't allow the use of a graphing calculator because you can "cheat" that way by storing test information in them.

I am also terrible at doing math in my head. If it's something simple such as figuring out how many tabs I need to administer (you need to give 650mg acetaminophen PO, you have 325mg tabs on hand, how many do you give?) or calculating how many mL i need to draw up in a syringe for an IVP or how many units for insulin, I can easily do that in my head. when it comes to figuring out mL/hr (unless it's something really simple, such as 100mL in 2 hrs, how many mL/hr?) or gtt/min or for critical care calculations (mg/min, mcg/min, mg/hr, mcg/hr, mcg/kg/min...) I always go for a calculator. In all of the critical care floors at my hospital, they have calculators in every chart box for the nurses to use. For my critical care rotation in nursing school, they actually encourage the use of calculators, and that's because it is so easy to mess up a critical care calculation in your hand and you work with vasoactive drugs as well as other drugs where it is CRUCIAL to have the correct dose.

[heartnursing]

The NCLEX has a little pop-up calculator on the screen.

.

It makes sense... I mean once im in the working world and no longer in school im going to use a calculator and double check all my answers to prevent med errors..