Nursing Preparation Study Guide

Nursing Preparation Study Guide

Chapter 5: Drug Calculations (KAPLAN ONLY) Nursing students often wonder why they are required to take math classes for their program. The reason why is that being able to follow logic and implement math into your daily life is a great skill to have and is necessary when working with patients. Patients rely on their nurses to be able to safely administer the correct dosage to them in a timely manner. Even if dosage is written out or administrated by a programmable machine it is still not uncommon that you will be required to confirm the accuracy of the machine. Your company might even require multiple nurses to have to verify the correct dosage of a prescription multiple times while on your shift. To be successful on the KAPLAN Entrance exam students must be knowledgeable of different types of unit conversions. Knowing how to correctly convert a dose will allow help you to administer the correct dose to a patient. Let’s start with basic conversions. 5.1 Basic Conversions From converting from one unit to another you first need to recognize if your unit is a customary or metric unit. Customary units are those units used in the United States. Below is a list of some common customary units. 5.1.1 Customary Units Common Customary Measurements Length Weight Time Capacity 1 foot = 12 inches 1 yard = 36 inches 1 yard = 3 feet 1 mile = 5280 feet 1 mile = 1760 yards 1 pound = 16 ounces 1 ton = 2000 pounds 1 minute = 60 seconds 1 hour = 60 minutes 1 day = 24 hours 1 week = 7 days 1 year = 12 months 1 year = 365 days 1 leap year = 366 days 1 cup = 8 fluid ounces 1 pint = 2 cups 1 quart = 2 pints 1 quart = 4 cups 1 gallon = 4 quarts 1 gallon = 16 cups To convert from one unit to another you need to use dimensional analysis. Dimensional analysis requires that you know a conversion factor(s) that relates one unit of measure to another. See the example for more instructions.

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