Nursing Students General Students
Published Oct 10, 2006
DrugReptoNurse
133 Posts
Dobutamine is available in 250mg of 250ml of solution. It is being administered at 15gtt/min. The patient weights 70kg.
How many mcg per kg is the patient receiving per minute?
I had this on a test today and couldn't figure it out.
puggymae
317 Posts
What is the calibration on the tubing?
It wasn't given
GeminiTwinRN, BSN
450 Posts
17.86?
solumedrol
62 Posts
what's the dose ordered 1mg/kg?
Daytonite, BSN, RN
1 Article; 14,604 Posts
are you sure you've remembered all the parts of this problem correctly? a solution of 250mg of dobutamine in 250ml of solution would be 1mg per 1ml, or 1000mcg per 1ml. (1 mg = 1000mcg) assuming that it is being given by microdrip tubing, which is how dobutamine is usually given, that would be 250mcg per minute (15 microdrops per 60 seconds reduces to 1/4 of 1000mcg). the ratio 250mcg per 70kg would be 4 mcg/kg of body weight per minute (rounded off). however, you're not supposed to assume anything. so, there is missing information here--like the kind of tubing being used.
yeah, my answer had a left-over in the computation.
1/70kg x 1000mcg/1mg x 250mg/200ml = 250,000/14,000 = 17.86
however, the mls on the bottom are left over, not cancelled, and that tells me that there is something left out.