How does nurses use math




















Nurses should know how to calculate an intravenous flow rate IV manually without the use of a pump. They do calculations to control the amount of fluid or medication given to a patient. Nurses also use IV flow rate calculations to determine the time administration will finish.

Nurses also should be familiar with different administration sets and tubing because it affects the amount of fluid or drug given. Aunice Reed is a medical science writer living in Los Angeles, Calif.

Aunice Reed. Share It. Medications and solutions can be measured using a variety of measurement systems -- metric and apothecary, to name a couple. There is not one industry standard, so nurses use math to convert between these systems, using the shortest number of steps.

Nurses memorize conversion tables and commonly used measurement abbreviations. They use the rules of Roman numerals, fractions, decimals, subtraction, addition, number rounding and conversion factors to solve ratios. To find conversions, nurses must be able to solve for x and find the unknown measurement. Math is used to calculate the flow rates for an IV. Nurses use math to calculate how much IV fluid to administer per hour, how many drops per minute, how much medication should be in the IV and how much medication should be dispersed in a given time period.

They also use formulas to establish the amount of medication that should initially be in the IV and how much needs to be dispensed at given times. Experienced nurses know that mathematics is just part of the job, and over time they use it so often, they probably don't realize it.

Nursing students and working nurses benefit by having nursing math books. These serve as learning and study guides and can also be used at work as references. Elsevier has one designed for nursing students, and it covers the basic arithmetic that they need to know, plus a quick-reference card that includes the essential formulas.

Nurse Theory writers report that many nursing students become frustrated when it comes to learning mathematics. Probability was the main concept taught in statistics. Statistics may help the nurse in solving and interpret numerical fact about a medication for a patient. Many nursing schools also taught finite math. This subject includes many subjects before the subject calculus. Geometry, basic math, statistics or pre-calculus are included in this aspect.

This is important for nursing students. They must be able to know how to compute dosages of medicines or conversion of basic units.

Mathematics is required in many courses even in nursing. It is because we deal with numbers most of the time. Nurses will be able to use their basic knowledge and principles of mathematics in their daily routine in the health care facility. Skip to content You may be wondering why nursing and medical students need to study mathematics as a part of their course.



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