Book review - Nursing Calculations

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Throughout the book, material is presented in succinct bite-sized pieces which follow a logical and sequential tract. Many examples are offered and each chapter is interspersed with exercises for the reader to conduct – with the answers provided at the back of the book. Chapter 1 has perhaps too many exercises which may put the reader off going through other chapters. This said, the other chapters are mostly much lighter in comparison. All the chapters, apart from the first chapter, also have a revision section at the end – again with answers towards the back of the book. The seven presented chapters are devo- ted to ‘review of basic calculations’, ‘dosages of oral medications’, ‘drug doses for injection’, ‘intravenous infu- sion’ and ‘paediatric doses’, in that order. The paediatric doses chapter may not appeal to those who do not work with children. For those that do though, they may require more detail than this short chapter provides. Chap- ter 6 is not really a chapter. It is, instead, six pages of summary exercises with answers provided later on. Chapter 7, meanwhile, is where all the answers for the exercises, revisions and summary tasks are provided – so also not really a chapter. A useful index concludes this book – and the authors have refrained from calling this a chapter. So, to conclude, this is a very useful book for those who often have to wrestle with the complexities and nuan- ces of drug calculation and administration. It works well as either a ‘dip-in’ reference or as a read through. I would not recommend doing it in one sitting though, as I did, otherwise numbers, facts and figures begin to blur into one.

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