Page 34 - Zoo Animal Learning and Training

18 Tasks for the Veterinary Assistant

Finally, you may see instructions for diluting a concen­ The pounds cancel each other out:
trate written as a percentage. This is a three­step formula:
25 lb W 2mglb/. / 75mgtablet 25 275mg /
/
/
/
______ % _____total amount desired /100 mL tablet 50 75mg tablet t 0 666 ofatablet.
.
/
___________ mLoff concentrate.
As tablets cannot be broken into 0.66 portions, your
The final amount of solution needed is based on the only option in this case is to round down or up. With this
total amount needed minus the milliliters of solution: medication the clinic will opt to round down to 0.5 or ½
of a tablet. If the answer was in the 0.8 or higher range it
______ mL total amount of water required ______ would be rounded up. Decisions on when to round up or
mLof concenttrate ______ mLof water. round down will be those bits of information that you
learn when you are working in the practice.
You have to subtract the starting volume from the What happens if the dosage of the medication is in
final volume to get the amount of water required for the mg/kg? The first thing we must do is convert the weight
dilution. For example, you need to refill a quart spray of the patient from pounds to kilograms. Remember
bottle with a 3% dilution of bleach with water. We know how to do that? Then proceed with the drug calculation.
that a quart is about 1000 mL. Plug the numbers into the Here is an example.
formula:
Patient weighs 16 lb 13 oz. Your drug dosage is 4 mg/
3 1000 100mL 30mL . kg, the concentration of the medication is 20 mg/mL.
/
1000mL desired volume 30mL concentrate Weight conversion first ounces into pounds :13 oz /
–
/
–
970mLof water. 16 oz lb ozccancels out – 13 oz /16 oz . 081 lb
30mLof bleach is added to 970mLof water 1681 lb are then converted to kilograms :16 .81 lb /
.
16
/
10000mLof 3% diluted bleach solution. . 22 lb kg lb cancel out .81 lb / .22 lb /
kg 764 kg
g
.
:.
Drug Calculation Drug calculation formula 764 kgW() 4 mg /
W
kg 20 mgmL – kg and mg cancel out 764 kg ()
/
/
.
–
4 mgkg / 20 mg / mL . 7 64 4 /
/
Another mathematical problem used consistently in 20 1.528mL .
.
veterinary medicine is that to calculate drug dosages.
These calculations are usually handled by veterinarians We can drop the last two digits and deliver 1.5 mL.
and veterinary technicians; however, there may come a
time when you are asked to figure one out and being
able to adds value to you as an employee. Veterinarians
prescribe medications based on their knowledge of phar­ Information Exercise
macology and diseases or conditions that these medica­
tions are specifically manufactured to treat. The amount Solve the following drug calculations. Read each
to give an individual is usually based on weight in either carefully!
pounds (lb) or kilograms (kg). Each medication is for­ • A patient weighs 42 lb 5 oz, and needs an injec-
mulated to be therapeutic at a certain dosage. The med­ tion of medicine, the dose is 0.04 mg/lb, the
ication is manufactured at a certain concentration, concentration is 0.54 mg/mL.
which is found on the label. This information is utilized • A patient weighs 6 lb 11 oz and needs an oral
to figure out how much medication an animal should antibiotic, the dose is 25 mg/kg and the tablets
receive for it to heal the disease or condition the patient are 50 mg. They have score marks for breaking
is currently suffering from. The formula is expressed as: them in quarters.
WeightW dose D / concentration C
,
number of tabletscapsullesor milliliters required.
,
Medical Terminology
For example, a non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drug
(NSAID) is a routinely used medication for the treatment The base languages of medical terminology are either
of pain in dogs. The dosage is 2 mg/lb of body weight Latin or Greek, with some exceptions. Therefore,
(BW) per day, the patient is a 25‐lb dog, and the medica­ learning medical terminology is very much like learning
tion comes in 75 mg tablet concentrations. Plug the a new language. Recognizing and memorizing defini­
information into the formula: tions of frequently occurring word parts is essential to
deciphering a word’s meaning. The word parts are key to
/
/
25lb W 2mglb / 75mgtablet. understanding medical terminology. Most words will use