I'm having trouble setting this up.

Question

7.) Your patient weighs 143 1b, and you are ordered to infuse 250 mg dobutamine in 500 mL NS at 10 mcg/kg/min. How many milligrams of dobutamine will infuse per hour? (1mg= 1000 mcg)

Answer 1

I prefer to do these problems in steps:

 

 

1. Convert mcg of dobutamine to mg in the per pound flow rate:

 

10 mcg dobutamine      1000mcg     .01 mg dobutamine     

-------------------------   / -----------  =  ------------------------

 

     kg-min                         mg                  kg-min 

 

 

2. Convert minutes to hours:

 

.01 mg dobutamine         60 min        .6 mg dobutamine

------------------------  *     ---------  =   ------------------------

       kg-min                        hr                      kg-hr

 

 

3. Convert kilograms to pounds:

 

.6 mg dobutamine           2.2 kg            1.32 mg dobutamine

-------------------------  *     ---------- =     --------------------------

         kg-hr                           lb                  lb-hr

 

 

This gives us the number of mg of dobutamine that would infuse per hour, per pound of weight of the patient.

 

Multiply this by 143 lb:

 

1.32 mg dobutamine                       188.76 mg dobutamine

--------------------------   * 143 lb =    ------------------------------

      lb-hr                                                    hr