Which way do I round?

[sandanrnstudent]

When doing med calculations I know that you round the answer to the number of decimal places in the question (ie 1.9 is your answer, but it's asking for tablets (no decimal) so your answer is 2 tablets.) However, what do you do in real life with actual medication? Do you give less that "enough" or more than that -- or is this not an issue because the dr. writes the order for what to give.

I'm just wondering, haven't started clinicals yet.

TIA,

sandan rnstudent

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

You can't give 1.9 of a tablet, so you have to round. Round up to 2, because 1.9 is close. If you round down to 1.5 or 1 tab, the patient isn't getting the dose that is intended by the physician.

[Twinmom06, ASN, APN]

our med math instructor told us that if the tenth's (or hundreths) is 5 or greater round up, but if it is 4 or less to round down...

[SweetseRN]

I don't think this is something you would ever be confronted with on a test or in real life. You cannot give say .6 of a tab and round up to 1...depending on the med and the dose, rounding a tablet that much could be crazy dangerous. If you are giving tablets the answer should always come out to a whole number or 0.5...Also, watch out if you end up with an answer that is more than 3 tabs, that is usually never correct and needs double checking.