¶ … Life Types of math used in a nursing career

Math used in a nursing career and in everyday life

Nurses use math on a daily basis: on a very basic level, simple arithmetic is required to keep track of supplies, patients, hours worked, and other logistical issues. Math is used to add up a patient's caloric needs, to compare the patient's lab readings such as cholesterol to that of the general population, and also to assess the patient overall in light of different demographic groups and lifestyle practices. For example, a young, healthy, adult male will require more calories to support his activities than a sedentary one. Expected vital data on health such as blood pressure and cholesterol will vary depending on the patient's age, gender, health and demographic status.

Thus, mathematics can be an issue of life and death. One of the most important ways in which nurses use math on a daily basis is when calculating how much of a particular medication to give a patient. "Nurses and other allied health professionals must understand medications and their administration to patients. Although the doctor and pharmacist play key roles, the nurse or other professional gives the meds to the patient and MUST be accurate in dosage"...

The use of ratios and proportions are useful to calculating dosage: for example, a nurse may be faced with the following problem: "suppose a drug comes in tablets of 150mg. The dosage ordered is 375mg. How many tablets are needed?" (Baiyasi 2001).
Nurses involved in research or a nurse who uses evidence-based practice must evaluate statistics and percentages to determine the best possible course of action for a client. The deployment of statistics by nurses stretches back to Florence Nightingale and beyond. "Systematically collecting, analyzing, interpreting, disseminating, and using health data is essential to understanding the health status of a population, to assessing progress, and to planning effective prevention programs" (Schloman 2001). A nurse must be able to evaluate if a study produced a statistically significant result, if the results were relevant to her patient's population, and if the research was conducted in an accurate fashion.

Mathematics is necessary in many areas of life, not simply those confined to a nurse's professional existence. Math enables a cook to cut down a recipe to scale using fractions or to estimate how many hours it may take to cook a Thanksgiving turkey. Both geometry and algebra may…