pharmacology and nursing math

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Specializes in podiatry.

I am starting my first semester in the LPN program, I am extremely intimidated about the math part of it, does anyone have any good tricks on remembering the conversions, or basically any help that you can give would be much appreciated. I worked too long and hard to get into this school to fail now....(very competitive school)

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There are several good dosage calculations/math books at your local book stores (Books A Million, etc.) The good thing about the math for pharmacology is that there is more than one way to solve a problem - there is a ratio and proportion method, an alebraic method and a dimensional analysis for the first problems, then add formula method later on. of all these, dimensional analysis and formula method were by far easier to wrap my feeble brain around.

http://www.dosagehelp.com/

This is really for RNs, but it was useful for me in my LPN Pharmacology class

http://learn.sdstate.edu/nursing/Medication.html

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One more thing - go ahead and make yourself a "cheat sheet" with conversions - you will need the metric system, farenheit to celsius and celsius to farenheit.....ml, oz tsp, tb, g, mg, kg, etc.....ie, 30ml = 1 oz,

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Specializes in podiatry.

you are awesome, thank you so much

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I'm terrified of math, and just stink at it, but the dosage calc was a piece of cake!!!! I was shocked when we got to it and kept thinking, is this it? I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. Just do all the problems you can, but above all don't stress too much about it.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

Amanda I too begin my LPN program next week and math is my week point but, know i can do it and too have been looking for pointers in how to feel more ready! Thanks for the tips everyone!

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demystified books are awesome. One called dosage caluclations demystified. It has helped me so much!

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i suck at math too but it's actually really simple...I have an A in my math for pharmacology class so you will be fine

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

that is awesome! i am working right now to get all my conversions in my head and mind! heheh so this is what i have learned thus far and I guess everyone learns differently. for mass/mass conversions i do this

ordered/have(on hand)= y or desired dose

for my mass/liquid conversions i do:

ordered/have multiplied by volume per have

then I have been learning how many teaspoons, drops, ect what kindof math do you learn in the LPN program and, has it been difficult for yout o keep up with the program?

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