Medical Mathematics and Dosage Calculations for Veterinary Technicians

Robert Bill

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781118924143
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Veterinary Medicine

This user-friendly guide to medical mathematics helps veterinary technician students develop the math skills required before going into the practice setting.

• New workbook format allows readers to practice problems right inside the book
• Covers math fundamentals, metric and non-metric conversions, dosing and concentration, IV drug infusion, prescriptions, and doctors' orders
• Offers step-by-step instructions for performing calculations
• Newly expanded to include calculation of constant rate infusions, dilutions, compounding, and anesthesia applications
• Features a full answer key and images from the book in PowerPoint for instructors on a companion website

"The text is organized to help readers with rudimentary math skills as well as those who just need a little review on how to perform medically related mathematical calculations....Overall, this is a well-organized textbook that will help students at all levels of mathematic competency navigate the sometimes-challenging area of medical calculations."- JAVMA Vol 255 No. 6

Section I
Review of Math Fundamentals

1
Math Fundamentals: Self‐assessment

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OBJECTIVES

The student will be able to:

1. conduct a self‐assessment, and
2. identify areas needed for review.

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In a medical situation the most beneficial drug can be rendered worthless or dangerous if the veterinarian or veterinary technician does not accurately calculate the dose. As many veterinary professionals can testify, it is not enough to just have a superficial understanding of dosage calculation because superficial knowledge often fails during an emergency situation. The skill of accurately calculating drug dosages or making correct medical math calculations must be deeply ingrained and practiced to be consistently reliable.

Another obligation of professionals is to recognize and accurately identify the limits of their knowledge and to strengthen the weaker areas of their skills or knowledge. To help you define the areas of math and dosage calculation that you need to refresh or review, complete the following self‐assessment exercises. Note that some of the exercises require you to perform the tasks without a calculator. Although a calculator should be used to carry out most dosage calculations, it is also important that the veterinary professional understands how to perform the basic operations manually. They will thereby be able to recognize when an answer to a problem is obviously not accurate (e.g. when the decimal point is misplaced by 1 or 2 places).

For those sections of the self‐assessment that you identify as areas where a review would be useful, work through the chapters and sections of the book to which that section of the self‐assessment exercise refers.

Self‐assessment Exercises

1. Write each of the following numbers in scientific notation:
   1. 23
   2. 132
   3. 522 178
   4. 0.2
   5. 0.0452
   6. 0.000 067
   7. 94.0023
   8. 897.010 00
2. Add or subtract the following decimal numbers, without a calculator:
   1. 1.5 + 4 =
   2. 9.7 + 1.9 =
   3. 6.55 + 7.43 =
   4. 0.42 + 0.09 =
   5. 0.009 + 4.0 =
   6. 7.5 – 2.5 =
   7. 9.0 – 3.9 =
   8. 23.125 – 1.50 =
   9. 0.551 – 0.095 =
   10. 0.003 52 – 0.0009 =
   11. The veterinarian needs a mixture of the following three drugs to be administered as an anesthetic cocktail: 0.4 mL Drug A, 0.35 mL Drug B, and 1.24 mL of Drug C. What is the final volume of combined drug ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Section I: Review of Math Fundamentals
• Section II: Understanding Units and Labels
• Section III: Dose Calculations
• Section IV: Other Calculations Used in Veterinary Medicine
• Appendix: Answers to Practice Problems
• Index
• End User License Agreement