In this instructional video, Christina Rafano from NursingSOS.com emphasizes the critical importance of mastering IV dose calculations for nursing school exams and the NCLEX. She walks viewers through a detailed example: calculating the drops per minute for a patient receiving 1200 mL of Lactated Ringer's over 10 hours using macro‑drip tubing labeled 10 gtts/mL. She demonstrates the step‑by‑step conversion process—aligning the desired unit (gtts/min) with the given data, applying conversion factors (drops per mL, hours to minutes), multiplying across, and dividing to arrive at 20 gtts/min, noting that no rounding is needed because drops are whole units. Rafano highlights the distinction between macro‑drip (10, 12, 15, or 20 gtts/mL) and micro‑drip (always 60 gtts/mL) tubing, warning that exams may only state “micro‑drip” without the numeric factor. She promotes a free cheat‑sheet containing all essential conversion factors, urges students to download it, and invites viewers to request more practice problems. The video concludes with motivational encouragement to become the nurse each viewer is meant to be.
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Hey there, friend. My name is Christina rafano from nursing sos.com and in this video, today we are going to walk through IV flow rates. It is so, so, so important that you understand dose calc inside and out before you start a new term in nursing school or really before you take any nursing school exam. Because dose calc questions are going to show up all the time on your nursing school exams and on the nclex. So they are so, so, so important to do. I want to make sure that you are prepped and ready to go. So let's dive into the. The patient will receive 1200 milliliters of Ringers lactate lactated ringers solution to run over 10 hours. The IV tubing you'll use says macro drip at 10 drops per mil. How many drops per minute will be infused. Ooh, fancy. Okay, so this one is going to be another big one that we're going to have to walk through. So we always want to start with what we need right at the end. What do we need to end up with? Now this question is asking us drop drops per minute. Okay? So gtts again, per minute. That's what we need to end up with at the end. All right, now what do we have, have or what's the order? All right, so the order that we have here is 1200 mils to run over 10 hours. So 1200 milliliters to run over 10 hours. Beautiful. We have milliliters, but we need to get to drops and we have hours, but we need to get to minutes. Right, so we need to use our conversions. Now, does this problem give us any conversions? And it does, but I wrote over it. Of course. It used to say 10 drops per mil. So 10. This is our macro drip tubing. 10 drops per mil. And before I forget, I want to make sure that you know that I have a whole dose calc cheat sheet for you that walks through all the conversion factors. So all the conversion factors that you'll need to know for your dose calc exam, I actually have them listed out on a free cheat sheet for you, and I hope that'll be really, really helpful for you. So I will put the link down in the description for you to snag that after this video. Be sure to grab that because it is really, really nice, very handy to have because those are the. Those are the conversion factors that you have to know before going into your doc exam. They don't give you those conversion factors during your exam. You have to actually have them memorized. You have to know them ahead of time. So those are. That's. That's very, very important. You want to be prepared for your exam and not be blindsided when you get there, right? So let's make sure you are prepared. So definitely grab that cheat sheet after you watch this video. So drops. Where is drops going to go? Is it going to go on the top or is it going to go on the bottom? I'll give you a minute to think about it. I want to see if you get it right and check yourself. Okay, when we are, we want to make sure we're looking over here. What we need drops per minute. So where does drops need to go? Does it need to go on the top or does it need to go on the bottom? We need to go on the top because here. It's here in the need at the top. All right, so 10.10gtts per 1ml, which is wonderful because now milliliter crosses itself out. So now we have drops over hours, which is fabulous because drops is on top here. It's on top in the need. So that is exactly what we need. Now we need to figure out how to get from hours to minutes. One hour is equal to 60 minutes. Easy peasy. One hour crosses out those hours. Cross out. Now we are just left with bam, bam, bam, bingo, bingo, bongo. Gtts over minutes, drops per minute. Okay, so now next, the next step. Multiply across the top, Multiply across the bottom. It's really that easy. Then divide those two numbers. Okay, when we do that, we get 12. Oops. I don't know why that's erasing. I think I'm clicking a fancy little button on my pen. Oops. Okay. Okay, Christina, don't click that button. It'll erase your stuff. 12,000. 1200 times 10 is 12,000. And then 60 times 10 is 600. Okay, so now 12,000 divided by 600. When we divide those two numbers, we get 20 drops per minute. Oh, bummer. Can't see that. There you go. 20 drops per minute. Okay, now, rounding rules. We don't have to round here because it's a whole number, which is beautiful. Like with the drip chambers, you're not going to. You can't. You can't accurately calculate a percentage of a drop or like a tenth of a drop or a. Like a 0.6. 0.6 of a drop doesn't work that way. So this is a whole number, which is beautiful. So our answer here is a beautiful 20 gtts per minute. Ooh, Christina, that was sloppy. But that's okay. Now a note That I want to make about this question here is that it says macro drip. Macro. Okay, Macro drip. Now, macro drips for IV tubing. When you get a question that says they are using macro drip tubing, that could be either 10, 12, 15 or 20 gtts. Okay? Per. Per mil. So 10, 12, 15 or 20 drops per mil. That is for macro drip tubing. Now here's the tricky part. Micro microdrip tubing is only okay. Only only 60 drops per mil. Only. Okay. So when you get a dose count question, sometimes they will actually only tell you that they're using micro drip tubing. Sometimes they won't actually put the 60 drops per mill. Sometimes they will only say it's microdript tubing. And they expect you to know that that means 60 drops per mil. Okay? So that's just something really important thing to note that definitely happened when I was in nursing school when I got to an exam and man, I just remember thinking, oh, what was that? Like I know this. What was that number? It's 60. Okay, got it. 60. 60 drops per mil for a micro drip tubing. But macro drip can be 10, 12, 15. And when it is a macro drip tubing, just like this question says, they will specify. They will give you. They will give you it. They will give you the number. They have to because there's multiple options. But for a micro drip, it's only 60. Okay, so if this question said micro drip tubing, then we would have put in the 60 drops per mil. Tell me in the comments if you want more dose calc practice problems like this. What types of dose calc practice problems you need, what you're studying. So that, that just really helped me to figure out what, what kinds of problems are most helpful for me to go over here that will help you the most and check out this video that I did that it walks through practice problems on PO meds and tablets. So if you need help with that, definitely check that video out. And as always, my friend, go become the nurse that God created only you to be. And I will see you over there in that next video.
