Reconstitution safe dosage calculation question

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Hello, I have a question I am struggling with.

The orders is for Omnicef (cefdinir), oral suspension 300 mg po q12 hr for 10 days.

The label say 125mg/5mL , Reconstitute with 37 mL Water, and 60 mL when reconstituted.

The question says to calculate how many grams of the antibiotic the patient will receive per dose???

THis is what I have so far:

300 mg ----> X

125 mg -----> 5 mL so, X = (300 * 5 ) / 125 = 12 mL

Now I am stuck, because I am not sure what to do with the 37 mL and 60 mL.

I don't understand how to read the question.... Can someone please help me. ???

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So I know that the tot volume after reconstitution will be 60 mL, and I also know that I have to add 37 ml to something.......

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On 10/19/2019 at 4:39 PM, Pendabear said:

Hello, I have a question I am struggling with.

The orders is for Omnicef (cefdinir), oral suspension 300 mg po q12 hr for 10 days.

The question says to calculate how many grams of the antibiotic the patient will receive per dose???

Does this help? Of course I might be heading in the wrong direction ? but I'm sure someone else will chime in.

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Well, do they just want the 0.3 g per dose???

What about all the other informations ??? I am confused.

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Why would it say read the label and calculate ???

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On 10/19/2019 at 4:50 PM, Pendabear said:

Well, do they just want the 0.3 g per dose???

What about all the other informations ??? I am confused.

The way you have the question written, yes that is my take on it. It asks how many grams will the patient receive per dose? It doesn't mention total mls after reconstitution, right?

Quote

orders is for Omnicef (cefdinir), oral suspension 300 mg po q12 hr

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.

Yeah, I was just going to say 0.3 grams. The rest of that is just a distraction. If they meant to ask how many mL per dose, they screwed up!

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I agree. I think they meant to say ml per dose.

If that was the case, will the 12 ml per dose be correct ??

And when would I use the 37 ml or 60 ml reconstitution data?? With what kind of questions???

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5 hours ago, Pendabear said:

The label say 125mg/5mL , Reconstitute with 37 mL Water, and 60 mL when reconstituted.

This is a bottle of powder, you are going to add water to make a suspension. In this case you are going to add 37 mls water to mix w/ the powder and when it is mixed it will total 60 ml of suspension. This information is irrelevant regardless whether they meant to ask about grams or mls.

Reconstitution information will be found in the package insert as well as on the label and it is important to read it and follow the instructions for reconstitution. There's not much more you need to know about it (wacky nursing school questions notwithstanding).

Yes, you have the correct answer/# of mls.

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Thank you so much. I got it now, I just had to ignore that last part. Not sure why the question was confusing, even though the label had nothing to do with the answer. Thank you again.

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Now that you know there are these types of questions you will be more confident in deciding when information is extraneous. It's actually a useful exercise and I'm sure that all of that information was given on purpose. It's important that people think about the question itself and focus on what is relevant and don't get into a habit of just trying to take all numbers and plug them into formulas. ???

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6 hours ago, JKL33 said:

Now that you know there are these types of questions you will be more confident in deciding when information is extraneous. It's actually a useful exercise and I'm sure that all of that information was given on purpose. It's important that people think about the question itself and focus on what is relevant and don't get into a habit of just trying to take all numbers and plug them into formulas. ???

Can't like this enough ?. With these problems, always start with "what do they want" and then pull out the other things you need for your formulas.

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