Math for nurses

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jul 21, 2009

On the job, 8th grade level math is pretty much all you need. However, each school is different and depending on their level of agony they want to inflict on students they may want to require as high as college algebra level math competency, especially BSN programs. I've seen some complicated drug calculation problems that instructors have come up with. I have never seen problems that complicated at work, I promise. However, every job I've had also gave a medication math test that had to be taken and passed before they let any nurse onto the units to work. Those tests were based on real work situations and not school problems.

Math conversions are getting less and less because of med errors. What I had been seeing is that any conversions were being put on the labels by the pharmacy or things like grains and grams were both being put on drug labels by manufacturers. Any conversions you might have to do are usually very routine and you get pretty used to doing them because you would be using those particular drugs all the time--if at all. They are really trying to keep dosage calculations to a minimum because of med errors in the past.

JBGC4 · Jul 21, 2009

Daytonite certainly made it clear on what you should know. If you are wondering if you can manage the math, you can. I was very leary about NE b/c I am not strong in algebra. I bit the bullet and took a chance and I can tell you, for what it seems that we need to know, my niece in the 7th grade is faced w/ much harder math. It is very, very basic.

elacer08 · Jul 21, 2009

Thanks so much for all the help. I really do appreciate it. I am not so great in math especially word problems but I am glad that the math sounds decent enough!

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jul 21, 2009

thanks so much for all the help. i really do appreciate it. i am not so great in math especially word problems but i am glad that the math sounds decent enough!

i took a lot of math classes. i was flunking math in the 7th grade. mostly because i wasn't paying attention and i had a mom who was like judge judy with a belt in her hand. when the teacher told her how i was failing and why, i really "got it" and had to shape up or else. i found that i really liked math and ever since math and i have had a love affair. i get a kick out of some of things that albert einstein has said about math. he, too, failed a lot in his early school years. i see a lot of wisdom in some of what he says.

it's not that i'm so smart, it's just that i stay with problems longer.

and something that many who go into nursing do not even know about the profession of nursing until they are trained in it. . .nurses are problem solvers. that is primarily what we are trained to do--solve patient problems. if math word problems have always been perplexing for you, now is just as good a time to work toward resolving that. there are little supplemental books you can purchase or websites you can go to that explain how to solve these kinds of math problems. or, you can sit on your ischial tuberosities and do nothing. but, when you become a nurse, you will learn that when we hear that something is wrong we take immediate action to do something about it or we go otd (out the door--get fired) very quickly. if we can do that for a patient we can certainly start by doing it for ourselves, can't we?

and, by the way, that just might be one of the things you get asked at a nursing school admission interview. tell us about a specific problem you had and what you did to solve it.