Nursing math sucks!

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Sep 23, 2008

despite the fact that a lot of people think i'm a hard***, i really am a lot of fun to work with, just a workaholic. i had a lot of problems with math as a kid, but did conquer them later in life and i have a lot of sympathy for people who are absolutely scared stiff of math. i will answer just about any math problem thrown out on the student forums. i am always on the lookout for med calc tutorials and if you haven't seen them, they are posted on post #3 of this sticky: https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/nursing-math-thread-264395.html at the top of which sits this quote by albert einstein

"do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. i can assure you mine are still greater."

not that your situation isn't important, but take a few minutes to take a few breaths and relax. watch the heroes debut tonight on nbc. here are some of my math sayings that i shared with kids that i tutored:

a decimal point : i'm a dot in place [anagrams--get it?]

i love mathematics by adam up

i love fractions by lois c. denominator

my favorite sayings that i often had printed out with slick pieces of clip art and pasted on the notebooks of the classes i was biting my fingers over:

welcome to s*** creek - sorry, we're out of paddles

or

when the chips are down, the buffalo is empty

feel free to borrow. never turn these exams in unless you have used up all the time available and gone back and re-worked every single problem a second time, a different way if possible, without looking at your first attempt. if the answers are different, work on another problem before going back to it.

good luck with your future math endeavors. for what it's worth. . .in all my years as a nurse, that old dose desired divided by dose on hand multiplied by the amount the dose on hand comes in, or however it is being taught to you, worked almost 90%+ of the time when i had to calculate doses and iv additives at work.

intensity_too · Sep 23, 2008

Thanks Daytonite for the message.

What upsets me the most is I thought I had a good handle on the material. Our test covered reconstitution, units, and peds dosing. Apparently I was wrong. I can't wait until we get our exams back tonight so I can see what mistakes I made, and pracitice more on problems from the book. I'm sure I made small mistakes, like not converting to KG correctly or my rounding was off. If it was small things like that I'll be really upset with myself.

I'm off to check out the Nursing Math sticky and find some links that will help me.

Luckily, even with this dissmal grade on this test, I'm still pulling an A average in the class . . . barely, but it's still an A.

-J