math help

[t2nrock]

Someone please help me figure this problem out. I'm sure it will be something simple because I've looked at it too long.

Ordered: a medication drip of 6 mg/ml. The IV bag is 500 ml. The vial reads: 1 gram of the medication in 5 ml of solution. How many ml of the medication would you add to the 500 ml to make the 6 mg/ml drip?

Thank you!

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Welcome to Allnurses.com!

Your post has been moved to the Nursing Student Assistance forum with the goal of someone coming along to assist you with this dosage calculation. Good luck to you.

[la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN]

Is this exactly how the question is worded? It reads a little strangely to me. However, this is what make sense to me:

The vial: 1 g (or 1000 mg) in 5 ml or 200 mg/1 ml concentration.

The order: 6 mg/ml

IV bag 500 ml

So, a 6 mg/ml times 500 ml = 3000 mg. 3000 mg/200 mg/ml = 15 ml. To check if this is right, if you add 15 ml, you add 3000 mg to the bag. 3000 mg/500 ml of IV solution gives you the 6 mg/ml concentration.

I'm not sure if this is right though but I tried to make it make sense. Hope it helps.

[MrChicagoRN, RN]

The above answer may be right, may be wrong. AN's TOS states we don't do homework, but we can help you reach the proper conclusion.

"Congratulations on being accepted into a nursing program! This is the place for nursing students to consult the membership to share knowledge, ideas, and experience, and to explore ways to maximize success in nursing school. Feel free to seek assistance with difficult content, care plans, interviews, papers, study questions, dosage calculations, and other academic challenges you are facing. This is NOT the forum to ask someone to do your homework for you. When asking for assistance with an assignment, please show what you have done first."

t2nrock, what have you come up with so far?

[t2nrock]

OMG you are brilliant! 15 ml is the correct answer; I just didn't know how to get there. Thank you so much for your help. I just started my 3rd semester of RN and loving every moment of it! Thanks again!

[t2nrock]

I apologize for not properly posting my question. I had been working on my dosage calculations and just ran into a brick wall. I'll post my work first then ask for assistance in the future. Thank you!

[pmabraham, BSN, RN]

Good day, t2nrock:

I've found dosagehelp.com (a web site I found about on this site) to be tremendously helpful for learning dosage calculations. You can have practice problems emailed on specific days of the week.

Thank you.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

OMG you are brilliant! 15 ml is the correct answer; I just didn't know how to get there. Thank you so much for your help. I just started my 3rd semester of RN and loving every moment of it! Thanks again!

This was a very strangely worded question. A "medication drip of 6 mg/mL" is not a complete order, at all. Basically, what you know from your question is that your final concentration must be 6 mg/mL. Your bag of fluids is 500 mL so how many mg of medication do you need to add to the bag to make it so that in every mL there are 6 mg? 6 x 500, right? So 3,000 mg. There are 1,000 mg in 5 mL so you need to do that 3 times. So if you add 5 mL 3x, how many mL have you added?

[la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN]

I apologize for not properly posting my question. I had been working on my dosage calculations and just ran into a brick wall. I'll post my work first then ask for assistance in the future. Thank you!

Yeah, I fugured that was the case which is why I felt it would be okay to help out. Next time, though, it helps if you post your reasoning up to where you started having trouble. Have fun in your new semester!

[la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN]

This was a very strangely worded question. A "medication drip of 6 mg/mL" is not a complete order, at all. Basically, what you know from your question is that your final concentration must be 6 mg/mL. Your bag of fluids is 500 mL so how many mg of medication do you need to add to the bag to make it so that in every mL there are 6 mg? 6 x 500, right? So 3,000 mg. There are 1,000 mg in 5 mL so you need to do that 3 times. So if you add 5 mL 3x, how many mL have you added?

Yeah, I was also going to mention that if this is a full bag of whatever (D5, NS, etc.) it's going to be pretty hard to add the extra 15 ml. It is a really weird question. Plus, the pharmacy really should be doing IV bags like that, not us.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

Yeah, I was also going to mention that if this is a full bag of whatever (D5, NS, etc.) it's going to be pretty hard to add the extra 15 ml. It is a really weird question. Plus, the pharmacy really should be doing IV bags like that, not us.

Now, I know this will date me, but you guys all know I'm an old, old, old bat already. (No, I'm not really THAT ancient, but still, been there, done that...) We never had premade vasoactives, heparin, aminophylline, Dilantin, electrolyte replacements, or any other kind of IV fluids. Except TPN, and even those sometims we had to add the insulin or some other components. We made them all ourselves. Doesn't take long, but you do have to know your basic math.

What do you think you will do when there is no pharmacist to make it up for you? When you are working in a disaster and you have to do these things yourself? (Ask the nurses in NOLA and NYC how that works.) There's a reason that the pharmacology med math component isn't taught with the single sentence, "Memorize the phone number for the pharmacy."

Don't you ever say, "Oh, we don't have to do that, the pharmacy should be doing that." Makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

[la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN]

Now, I know this will date me, but you guys all know I'm an old, old, old bat already. (No, I'm not really THAT ancient, but still, been there, done that...) We never had premade vasoactives, heparin, aminophylline, Dilantin, electrolyte replacements, or any other kind of IV fluids. Except TPN, and even those sometims we had to add the insulin or some other components. We made them all ourselves. Doesn't take long, but you do have to know your basic math.

What do you think you will do when there is no pharmacist to make it up for you? When you are working in a disaster and you have to do these things yourself? (Ask the nurses in NOLA and NYC how that works.) There's a reason that the pharmacology med math component isn't taught with the single sentence, "Memorize the phone number for the pharmacy."

Don't you ever say, "Oh, we don't have to do that, the pharmacy should be doing that." Makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I totally get that it is possible that in some places without such facilities nurses do these things on the regular. I just said that after watching my preceptor try to squeeze excess fluids back into a brand new bag because the last nurse left the drip chamber on the tubing too full to see the drops fall. I was thinking, "Well, since that 500 ml bag was full, how are we going to get the extra in?" And, then, if we had to, there would have to be enough room for the reconstituted mL to be added so then the concentration really wouldn't be 6 mg/ml but something roughly equivalent and I know I'm over-thinking that but yeah! Also, at this current clinical has been the first to have regular medication errors that originated with the pharmacy so I have definitely learned not to count on the pharmacy for really anything except that likely I am going to have to be keen on double-checking everything I get from them (yes, it's been that bad).

You're not dating yourself -- my inexperience is just showing.