Oct 6, 2023
While the UK and United States have different methods for assessing their health professionals often the calculations and math(s) strategies are the same. I invite you to enjoy this 12-part series on Part 6 of preparing for the Pre-Reg exam but will also help those in the states that are looking to improve their skills in nursing, pharmacy technician, and pharmacist skills. Here's the Memorizing Pharmacology book link: https://www.audible.com/pd/Memorizing-Pharmacology-Audiobook/B09JVBHRXK?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-281667&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_281667_rh_us
Want more options?
Find the book here: https://geni.us/iA22iZ
and subscribe to my YouTube Channel TonyPharmD here: https://www.youtube.com/c/tonypharmd
Auto Generated Transcript:
Welcome to the Memorizing Pharmacology podcast. I’m Tony Guerra, the pharmacist and author of the Memorizing Pharmacology book series, bringing you mnemonics, cases, and advice for succeeding in Pharmacology. Sign up for the email list at memorizingfarm.com to get your free suffixes cheat sheet or find our mobile-friendly self-paced online pharmacology review course at residencyteachable.com.
Let’s get started with the show. The patient is prescribed a cytotoxic medicine at a dose of 30 mg per meter squared daily for 3 days. The patient weighs 80 kilos and is 1.8 m tall. The body surface area equation is given to you: meter squared equals the square root of weight in kilograms times the height in centimeters divided by 3600.
We want to make sure that we’ve got good conversion factors. How many capsules are needed? So, 10 milligrams per one capsule are needed to provide the 3 days per course of treatment. We have 30 mg per meter squared per day, 3 days per course, 80 kilos, and 1.8 m.
Let’s look at when we put it in the body surface area equation. We see our weight was 80 kilos; our height needs to be changed from meters to centimeters. So, we have 80 kilos and then we see 180 cm, and then that 3600 is constant. We work the math and then take the square root to get 2 m squared.
We’re really looking for the number of capsules at the end. If capsules are at the end, we begin with one capsule over 10 milligrams as our conversion. We need something to get rid of the milligrams and we see that we have 30 milligrams per meter squared per day. Again, these are two denominators: meter squared and day. So we’re going to need to use the 2 m squared (the body surface area we calculated) and the days to get rid of these two so that we’re left with just capsules after we diagonally cross off milligrams, day, and meter squared.
The answer is 18 capsules.
Thanks for listening to the Memorizing Pharmacology podcast. You can find episodes, cheat sheets, and more at memorizingfarm.com. Again, you can sign up for the email list at memorizingfarm.com to get your free suffixes cheat sheet or find our mobile-friendly self-paced online pharmacology review course at residencyteachable.com. Thanks again for listening.
Like to learn more?
Find my book here: https://geni.us/iA22iZ
and subscribe to YouTube Channel TonyPharmD here: https://www.youtube.com/c/tonypharmd