Help!! Question on pretest about IV rates and tubing

[newrn05]

Hello. I recently got a new job at a great hospital in my area. I was given a pretest to take home and study before taking my Pharm test. There is a few questions that have me stumped. About five of the questions as you to figure out the drip factor between micro and macro tubing that part is easy. My difficulty is that the next question asks which tubing would you use and why. I have looked over all of my books and I can't find any rationale to this so I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions. The fluids range from LR to D51/3 and NS. My first instict is to go with the lowest rate. Any suggestions. Dawn

[tracey2705]

One reason to use macrodrip is if you think there's a chance you might have to push fluids in a hurry, for example if you're hanging an IV on patient who looks a little shocky. Another reason might be to make conversion from mg or units per hour to the drip rate. Not sure how often that would come up though. Another reason might age of the patient; you wouldn't hang macrodrip on a kid.... Do they expect you to evaluate a drug or do they provide a apatient scenario?

HTH

Tracey