Review THIS before you take your dose calc exam!
In this instructional YouTube video, Christina Rafano (nursingsos.com) prepares nursing students for their dose calculation exams by highlighting four essential areas that will inevitably appear on the test. First, she advocates using dimensional analysis (the "railroad track" method) over formula-based approaches, explaining that the latter fails on complex problems like Heparin, Pitocin, and IV calculations, and introduces her six‑step dimensional analysis system. Second, she stresses the necessity of memorizing a comprehensive set of dose‑calc conversion factors, offering a free cheat‑sheet and flashcards to aid retention. Third, she details rounding rules and the critical handling of zeros, teaching the mnemonic “nurses are leaders, not followers” to emphasize using leading zeros and avoiding trailing zeros to prevent dosage errors. Finally, she urges students to double‑check all work to catch mistakes, especially under exam anxiety. Throughout, she provides encouragement, references additional conversion videos, and calls viewers to subscribe and engage.
Chapters
There are a few things that are so, so, so important that you review before taking your dose calc exam in nursing school. These things are absolutely going to happen or show up on your exam and I want to make sure that you are prepared for when they throw them at you. So we're going to walk through what they are in this video. So click that subscribe button and click the notification bell and let's dive in. Hello my friend. My name is Christina Rafano from nursingsos.com and one of my favorite, favorite, favorite topics to te for nursing school is dose calc. I love dose calc. To be honest, I thought that I was so bad at math before nursing school I kind of was really bad at math. But over the course of going to nursing school, taking those dose calc exams and really figuring out how to answer these questions properly, I got pretty good at it. And so I have taught so many students how to ace their dose calc exam. That's what we're going to talk about in this video. I really want to make sure that you are super prepared to take it because these questions can be really tricky. So there are really a few things that I want to make sure that you know about before and that you review before you go into take your exam because they are going to show up. So the first one is you've got to make sure that you understand dimensional analysis. So one of the biggest pushbacks that I get about dose calc is Christina, why don't you use the formula method or any of the formulas that are available? So formulas are great for some things, but because they're not great for everything, I do not recommend that you start with formulas when you are in nursing school. So formulas especially like the desired over have formula, that's super common and you can use that for basic, basic dose calc problems like PO meds or something like that where there's not multiple conversions happening. You don't really have to, you can really just plug in the numbers. It's like plug and play. But that becomes a major like major problem. I friend when you get into the higher levels so to speak, or just the more advanced dose calc problems, things like Heparin, Pitocin calculations, IV calculations or just even tablet medications where you or or IV calculations where you have to do multiple conversions in the same problem. So that's really where that desired over half formula, it just breaks on you like it just will not work. You, you can't just plug in a ton of numbers into that. It doesn' so that's why I teach it this way. We call it the railroad track method or dimensional analysis is what it's called. And it is so, so simple once you understand how to use it. Because it's going to, it's going to work for whatever does calc problem you are dealing with a nursing school. So once you have the system down, the system that I teach, that way you can walk into any dose calc exam and look at any problem. And if you follow those six steps that I teach you will get it right. It's just how it works. It is so, so cool. I really, really encourage you to do it that way. Of course, if you want to stick with the formula method, that is totally, totally fine, that's your prerogative. But I would just highly, highly encourage you to check out the dimensional analysis way. Check out my videos on the six step process for how to get every single one of your dose calf problems right because I really, really do believe that it's the best way to do it. And I really encourage you to check that out and see what works best. For they don't want you to ever get to a dose calc exam say when you're in med surg or pediatrics or your OB rotation and have that formula method break on you. You want to make sure that you understand how to do heparin calculations, pitocin calculations, IV calculations, all of those things. And that is what that my six step process will help you to do. Now the next thing that's so, so, so important that you review before you take your dose calc exam is dose calc conversions. Now these are right out of our dose calc system. These are all dose calc conversion fl. So these are all the, the dose count conversions that you've got to know before you go in to take your exam. Now the thing is, and maybe this is something that a lot of nursing students maybe miss or don't really realize is that when you go to take your nclex or any nursing exam or your dose calc exam, your instructors and that test, they're not going to give you these. They're not going to give you the conversion factors that you have to know to answer the problems correctly. So you've actually got to have these memorized, which is kind of a bummer. But there are while there's a whole bunch of flashcards here to help you out with it, it's kind of a bummer that you do have to memorize them all. But it does make it easier when you have flashcards to help. And you have a whole list of them. All the, all the conversions that you need to know. It's just easier to just go through one at a time to make sure that you understand them all, because you really do have to have them memorized and in your, in your. Before you take the dose calc exam, please, please, please don't get tripped up. When you walk into your exam, please be prepared. Have these conversion factors down, like, have them solid in your mind, okay? Before you walk into your dose calc exam, I don't want you to miss any problems because you didn't understand these. So also, I should mention I actually have a free cheat sheet that will walk you through all these conversions as well. So definitely check that out. I will put the link down below in the description for you to check that out. It's just a, it's a do conversion cheat sheet and that'll walk you through all the conversions that you need to know. So that will hopefully, hopefully be helpful for you. Now the third thing that you really need to make sure that you review before taking your dose cock exam. Now, my friend, this is a big, big one. I would put this probably above conversions as far as, like, what nursing students tend to miss. This is one I get emails about all the time, and that is rounding rules, okay? And not only rounding rules, actually, but also zeros. Like, what do you do with the zeros and where do they go? So rounding rules and zeros are so, so important. Like, these rules, you could get every single question right on your dose calc exam, but if you round incorrectly or use zeros in the wrong way, the answer will still be wrong. So that's why it's so important. I don't, I don't, I don't often see nursing students reviewing these before going into their exam. And so that's something that you really want to make sure that again, you have down solid before you go in to take your dose calc test. So rounding rules, the first thing you want to make sure that you're looking at is when you get to a question on your dose calc exam, you want to make sure that you're paying attention to what they expect you to round to. Are they asking for a whole number? Are they asking for tenths? Are they asking for hundreds? Okay? That's like alarm bells need to be going off in your mind, all right? Like, if they're asking you for something specific, make sure you do that. So if they're asking you for a whole number and you get 2.1, then you're going to round down to 2 and we're going to cover those rounding rules in just a minute. But you want to make sure that you're following exactly what the question says, okay? So make sure that if they say to round to the hundredth that you have two places after that decimal point, all right, that is the hundredths place, make sure that you have two decimal points after that decimal to two decimal places. I think that's the proper terminology. After that decimal, 400. And if they're asking for tenths, it's one decimal place over from that decimal. So that's the. Just, I would say, I guess that's not, that's not a rounding rule, but it is like a place value rule that's very, very important to know before your exam. Okay? So make sure you're watching for that on your questions, that you are writing the answer in the way that they're asking for or you could get it wrong. So the rounding rule is that anything five and above you round up. Okay? So if, if the answer is 3.5 and they're asking you for a whole number, you're going to round up to four. Okay? And if the answer is four and below, then you round down. All right, so if, if they're asking you for a whole number but you get 3.4, then you're going to round down to 3. Does that make sense? As long as they're asking you for a whole number, okay, if they're asking you four, ten, then that's okay. Both of those answers would be fine, 3.5 or 3.4, because that is to that first decimal place, right? But if they're asking you for a whole number, you need to make sure that you are rounding up or down appropriately. So if it's five or greater, you round up. If it's four or lower, you round down. All right, now here's one that's kind of tricky that some nursing students I've noticed, just don't know. I'm not sure why. Maybe they're not teaching this in nursing school. Not too sure why this is happening, but that is, nurses are leaders, not followers. Okay? Remember this? That's a memory trick for zeros. This is your, like, this is a big deal zeros on your dose calc exam. They really, really matter, okay? Especially when you get to the nclex. So remember your memory trick. Nurses are leaders, not followers, which means you use leading zeros and not trailing zeros. All right? So if you get an answer on your dose calc exam, and it's like 0.55. All right, what are we going to do if the answer is 0.5? So decimal 5, okay? You're not going to write it as 0.5, because here's the reason. If that decimal gets lost, if it gets, if, if it just doesn't get transferred in the documentation or something, then it's going to look like a 5, right? There's a big difference between 0.5 of a medication and 5, right? That is a huge difference. If we want to give a dose of 0.5, but we accidentally give 5, that's a huge, huge problem. So that is why we use the memory trick. Nurses are leaders, not followers. So you add leading zeros, not trailing zeros. So when you are looking at a number like 0.5, if that comes up in your Doscalc exam and it's. You get an answer of 0.5, you're going to add a 0 to that beginning of it. So you're going to write it on your doscalc exam as zero. Does that make sense? Now, here's another thing. Nurses are leaders. You're going to add a leading 0, 0.5, but not followers. Okay? You're not going to put a 0.50, okay? For the same reason, if, if the answer is 0.5 and that decimal place gets lost somewhere in translation in the documentation somewhere, as nurses are charting and doctors are charting and pharmacists are trying, if that point, if that decimal gets lost somewhere, then it will. If you have it as 0.50, that's going to look like 50, which is a huge problem. Like if 5 was a problem, 50 is an even bigger problem. So we want to make sure that we don't have trailing zeros, right? Not following zeros. Remember, nurses are leaders, not followers. You use leading zeros, not following zeros. So make sure you add a zero to the beginning so it's 0.5, not 0.5 and not 0.50. I hope that makes sense. Same thing. If you, if you are doing like a tablet calculation and your number of tablets comes out to like 2.5, 2.5 tablets that you'll give a patient, you're not going to put a trailing zero on that. Okay? You're going to put. It's just going to be 2.5. That's it. Unless they're asking you to round up okay, to 3. So it's going to be 2.5, not 2.50. Because if that decimal gets lost it's going to look like 250. We're not going to give 250 tablets to our patient, right? Not going to happen. So I hope that makes sense for those, those zero rules. That's a really, really important one because like I said, even if you get the right answer, like 2.5, if you write it incorrectly on your exam and add that zero to the end or don' add a zero on the beginning if you have to, then you're going to get it wrong. So that's a big, that's a big, big problem. We don't want that to happen. Now the next thing super important is to always double check your work, my friend. I cannot even tell you how many times double checking my work on a dose calc exam has sieved my booty. I'm telling you like when you are seriously, when you are taking a doc exam, like you are nervous, like I'm like shaking, you know, writing out these answers or typing these answers. If it's an encouragement computer. I've had to do it both ways in nursing school. I don't know what your nursing school uses, but seriously, it is so, so it's like mentally exhausting. It is physically exhausting. You're like shaking and you're having an anxiety attack. Maybe that's just me, I don't know, maybe I'm crazy. But that has been my experience. Dose calc exams for me have been very, very nerve wracking. So if that is the case for you, I highly recommend that you double check your work. Because I, like I said, I have, I. It's like embarrassing to me. It's a little embarrassing that I have caught myself so many times writing the wrong answer or just doing things wrong. But when I double check it, I get it right. So you want to make sure that you do the math again. Especially if you get as nervous as I do when you're taking the dose cock exam. It's just, it's so important to just double check your work, make sure that you go back through it again, that you put everything where all the numbers in the right place where they need to go, that you crossed out the right units and that you wrote your answer correctly like we just talked about. So all those principles, so, so key. Like I said, if you're like me and really struggle with that high anxiety and stress before nursing school exams, I totally get it, my friend. I'm the same way. So I highly recommend that you double check your work. Now we talked a little bit about dose cal conversions but I want you to know that I actually have this awesome, awesome, awesome conversions video for you that walks you through all the conversion factors that you need know before your doc exam. So I highly recommend checking that video out, watch it again and again and again before you take your nursing school exam. Because as the more you hear them and the more you see them, then the easier they're going to be to remember. Like we said, you got to have those memorized. So I hope that video helps you out. And if you love this video, write love in the comments below. That's just what we do around here. And as always, my friend, go become the nurse that God created only you to be. And I'll see you over there in that next video.
