Incorporating the ratio and proportion, formula, and dimensional analysis methods, this online course presents a step-by-step approach to the calculation and administration of drug dosages. This Drug Calculations Online course is designed to be used with the 4th edition of Gray: Calculate with Confidence. Once students have read topics in the text, the online course provides them an opportunity for application and practice. Animations, voice-overs, and interactive self-assessment activities are used to provide an engaging and interactive course platform for students. This course includes practice problems to promote active learning and quizzes that instructors can use to evaluate students' understanding of content presented in the course. A comprehensive test bank of approximately 300 questions is also provided for instructor's to build quizzes and test.
I’ve never done as much dimensional analysis as I did in nursing school. There is a surprising amount of math involved, and if you’re giving insulin you’ll likely need to make calculations. This book is great for starting from the beginning and giving you clear step by step instructions on how to calculate dosages. There are many practice problems that helped immensely. Use this. I’m sure you’ll have calculation quizzes in one of your intro nursing classes.
Apparently, I do dimensional analysis without thinking. Yay me. This book makes you practice your skills with dimensional analysis. A lot. It also presents different ways you may have learned to come to the proper answers dimensional analysis gives you, but I didn't learn to do the algebra in those ways, so I ignored them. There's a few chapters about drugs that need particular care (insulin and heparin) which are worth a deeper read and a couple about conversion factors between measurement systems which are also worthwhile. Mostly I didn't bother even cracking the spine, except to verify I knew how to do the practice problems.
I was good at math before reading this, but ever since my prof forced us to do this baloney, my brain got confused as to just how on earth am i supposed to do this stuff? If you need practice problems calculating the math, i guess it might work for you, but this book made me like 5x dumber, so, after a while i gave up and just copied the answers out of the back of the book and just did the math my way on the test and got all of the med calc questions right.
Breaks conversions and dosage calculations down to the most simple steps. I liked that they show all different methods of calculation so the student can choose his/her personal favorite. The CD that comes with it has plenty of practice questions to prep you for exams.