Pro cal nursing help

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9 mg of reopro in normal saline has been prescribed for iv infusion at a rate of 10 mcg per minute. total volume is 250 ml, whats the infusion of ml per hour"

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Specializes in Oncology.

You convert the 9mg to mcg (9000 mcgs). You're giving 9000 mcg in 250 ml. So now you figure out how many mcg each ml has in it by diving the 9000 by the 250. You get 36 mcg/ml. To give 10mcg in a min you're dividing the 10mcg by the 36mcg in each ml. This means you want to give 0.28ml per minute to get this dose. Multiply this by the 60 minutes there are in an hour and you get an hourly rate of 16.8 ml/hr.

I haven't done nursing school math in awhile, so someone correct me if I'm wrong. Also, I think there's a formula, but I always had to work through it step by step in my mind rather than plug numbers into a formula.

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I just tried this by ratio and proportion: I converted 9 mg to 9000 mcg in order to be in the same units as the order. Then I divided 9000 by 250 to find the number of mcg in 1ml, which came to 36 mcg. Then I used ratio and proportion to find the number of ml/min: 36 mcg divided by 1 ml : 10 mcg divided by x ml. This gives 36x = 10, so x = 0.28ml (rounded). Multiplying 0.28 ml by 60 to get the hourly rate = 16.8 ml/hr.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

welcome to an! the largest online nursing community.

the posters above were very nice to give you the answer. i ma always glad to help with homework but i won't do it for you.....calculations are going to ba a huge everyday part of your nursing career and you need to learn how to do them yourself.

here is a really good free site to help you.

dosagehelp.com - helping nursing students learn dosage calculations

and for dimensional analysis

[color=#660099]drug dose calculations - daves ems history

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i just finished with pharm 1 for the summer session....96!....anyway....we did simple conversions and dosage calculations...when do the questions like the orginal OP posted come into the picture?....there must be a different formula for that eh? I was lost on that one.

our pharm use to be 4 credit hours crammed into one semester,i guess there wasnt a very high pass rate cause they broke it down to 4 1 credit class thru out the 4 semesters....i am just starting nursing in the fall but decided to take pharm this summer to get it out of the way....it was an online class and i was the only one in the class!!...had some great discussion post with my prof!!:lol2:

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

They can be very common......it is just an extra step......you have to convert the mgs to mcgs, or Lbs to Kgs. The rest is the same.

There are certain essential parts to every equation.......

Desired Dose:

Concentration:

Volume on hand:

Lb to Kg:

Looking for:

Administration set up:

Any conversions necessary?

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Specializes in Oncology.

I very rarely use math like this day to day. In the above question I would select the drug from the menu on the pump. The pump would give me a choice of concentrations. I would triple check this and select it. I would then triple check the ordered dose and program that in the pump. Done. I do conversions with the computer or my phone. The most complicated math my hospital trusts nurses with is, "Your patient needs 100mg of metoprolol. You have 50mg pills. How many pills do you give?"

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

See...I'm old school..;)...I do my calculations, then, I use the pump to validate my math and the pharmacies math. I trust NO ONE when it comes to the meds I am giving.

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I very rarely use math like this day to day. In the above question I would select the drug from the menu on the pump. The pump would give me a choice of concentrations. I would triple check this and select it. I would then triple check the ordered dose and program that in the pump. Done. I do conversions with the computer or my phone. The most complicated math my hospital trusts nurses with is, "Your patient needs 100mg of metoprolol. You have 50mg pills. How many pills do you give?"

I had the same mindset--no need for math now that everyone is supposed to be using pumps--that was until a disaster hit that knocked out the electricity for weeks. Electronic pumps were useless and we had to go back to the old tried and true way of delivering IV meds. I learned my lesson very quickly.

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and i hope this process didn't involve any harm to actual patients.

op, learn how to do it. never rely on a pump, because believe it or not, sometimes they are faulty. i like blondy's line of thinking because you get a sense of what the answer ought to be before you get there. many people would miss a decimal or something and end up giving 168cc/hour or 1.68 cc/hour.

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Specializes in Oncology.

To clarify, I do still think it's important to know, for scenarios like the above poster mentioned, it's just not something many nurses use on a day to say basis.

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I ask three questions with this type of math. 1) What is the order? 2) What do we have (or are given)? 3) What do we need the drug to be in (ml, mg, etc). Then, I always do dimensional analysis so I ensure that I'm crossing everything off that needs to be crossed off....

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