One of the most important classes a nursing student will take is dosage calculations.

Why Is the Dosage Calculation Class Important? Dosage calculations are required because medication is administered from a general dose container. Patients' medication dosages are determined by a variety of factors. It could be because of their actual diagnosis or because of their weight. It could even be related to any comorbidities or risk factors the patient currently has.   When drug manufacturers package medications, it is impossible for them to package a medication for every possible dosage. In most cases, it would be absurd for a pharmaceutical company to do so.       Another thing to keep in mind is that even if the drug company packaged every medication in every possible combination of dosages, your facility would never purchase all of them.   According to my observations, facilities will generally purchase the most commonly used drug dosage and then expect the nursing staff to administer the dosages accordingly.   Examples   The image above is from the video I made about it. If you want more information, you can watch it on my YouTube channel. Assume you work in a facility where 5mg and 20mg doses of Medication A are commonly administered. The facility may only order Medication A (tablet form) in 10mg doses.   If you cut Medication A (10mg dose) in half, you get 5mg, and if you give two of them, you get a 20mg dose.   What I just did is medication math in its most basic form.   Another Illustration Assume the doctor prescribes Medication A 5mg PO Now. To obtain the 5mg dose, you must divide a 10mg dose in half.   Dosage calculation becomes more complicated than this, but we'll cover that in another article.