Need Help with a Calculation (should be easy)

a nitroglycerin drip is ordered for your patient to control his chest pain. the concentration is 100 mg in 250 cc d5w. the order is to begin the infusion at 20 mcg/min. what is the rate you would begin on the infusion pump?

infusion pumps are almost always programmed at ml's/hour (or, cc's/hour). so, using dimensional analysis. . .

thank you, it is ok to put ml/hour even though it has mcg/hour earlier in the problem? i'm new to this, thanks for you assistance!

read what the question is asking of you carefully. it asks: a nitroglycerin drip is ordered for your patient to control his chest pain. the concentration is 100 mg in 250 cc d5w. the order is to begin the infusion at 20 mcg/min. what is the rate you would begin on the infusion pump? an infusion pump, as i said earlier, is almost always programmed at ml's/hour. so, yes, it is ok to put the answer is ml/hour because you have to in order to answer the question. this is information that you would have to know to complete this problem correctly. this is beginning critical thinking. you can't program a pump to deliver mcg/hour! how do you make the switch? for me, the easiest way is to use dimensional analysis which is also called the factor label method. with factor labeling (dimensional analysis) you manipulate the terms of the problem along with the labels on the numbers of it's terms using conversion factors to get you to the final answer that will have the labels on the final terms that you are looking for. in this case, a number with "ml's" in the numerator and a number with "hours" in the denominator. the problem itself is a simple dose desired divided by dose on hand to get the dose to give with a tweak on the amounts involved because they have to be equalized since they involve unequal units of measurement.

there are links to tutorials on dimensional analysis on the nursing math thread at https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/nursing-math-thread-264395.html. in the past i have also worked out and explained a number of problems like this on the dosage calculation thread (https://allnurses.com/forums/f205/dosage-calculations-88867.html)