How often do you do dosage calculation?

[winter_green]

I am starting my job as a new grad RN. This week has been a whole week of orientation. Yesterday, they had us go through a "skills lab" with pages of nursing questions regarding different topics. I realize how much I have forgotten my dosage calculation. When it came to that section, I was total clueless. I am now freaking out because I feel incompetent and looked like a total dumbie working with nursing students who were there orientating to work as externs.

I feel so incompetent knowing that I need review and master the dosage calcuation among other nursing things like herparin, etc. Is this just me or anyone else too??? I'm so worried because I start training on the floor next week.

[SharonH, RN]

I don't provide direct patient care anymore but up until the last time, I calculated every single time. You cannot trust pharmacy or someone else to calculate it for you, that's an error waiting to happen. Don't let anyone tell you that you don't need to double check the calculations. This is a basic nursing skill. The good news is that once you get back into the swing of it, you will master it.

[klone, MSN, RN]

I had to do a dosage calculation last week. It was probably the first time in about 2 years. I had another nurse double check me, because I'm so out of practice. We pretty much deal only with single dose vials, or single dose pills.

[PediLove2147, BSN, RN]

How can you get through nursing school without mastering dosage calculations?

I'm not trying to be mean...but seriously...this will be on your NCLEX.

I do dosage calculations every time I work...I make sure that what the physician ordered is the same that pharmacy has for the dosage and at least once very two weeks I catch an error...once, a major one.

If the physician makes an order and you don't double check the dosage entered by pharmacy and you give the wrong amount, it is your license....so you need to get a nursing math book and master this..it is dangerous, to work without knowing exactly how it works.

She has a a job therefore she has already taken the NCLEX. I am not trying to be mean but... read the post.

[winter_green]

I know I am really embarrassed. I promise myself I will review and work on it before I start the floor...so I can be a better and competent nurse.

[biblepoet]

I use it frequently sometimes in is in my head other times I need to get paper and pencil out.

[LETRN]

I do dosage calc everyday. When I worked on an inpatient floor I never did...pharmacy prepared everything and it was all packaged nicely and neatly in the exact dose. The IV pumps were preprogrammed with the recommended rate, etc.

I'm in ER now and we mix all of our own drips (Epi, Nitro, Dopamine, Insulin, etc) so they are not in the dosage amounts that match what is programmed into the pumps...so we have to figure mcgs/min into mls/hr, etc.

[roser13, ASN, RN]

I know I am really embarrassed. I promise myself I will review and work on it before I start the floor...so I can be a better and competent nurse.

No need to be embarrassed. Most of us do forget what we never use.

Just try asking any non-renal nurse about the renin-angiotension relationship or the Krebs cycle:lol2:

[PostOpPrincess, BSN, RN]

You use it all day long.

Brush up on it and make sure you know it better than you know your family.

The time will come when it is second nature.

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

Even though our pumps do most of us for us, we still have to write out a calculation sheet to make sure it is right....you can NOT rely on the pharmacy or docs or other nurses to make sure that it is the right dose, etc for that patient.

Once you do it over and over, it will be second nature to you :)

[klone, MSN, RN]

You use it all day long.

YOU do, perhaps. I do not. :)

[NeoNurseTX, RN]

Every time I give a med that's a new dose on a patient that I'm not familiar with. We do primary nursing on our unit so if it's a baby I've had for a while on the same dose, I won't recheck it every shift but if it changes or is a different med/baby, I check it before I give it. If you give a med that the MD calculated wrong, you're still at fault.