Six times four equals...??

I know others have commented on this in their blogs and have spoken about this to me on the phone or in person, but it still does not cease to amaze me when I write an order and it gets done without a cosignature.

Yesterday, I was finishing up some paperwork in the term nursery and a nurse rushes up to me and says, "Are you the resident here today?"

I've gotten to the point 5 days into residency where I don't catch myself starting to stay, "No, I'm just the medical student." Instead I say, "Yes, that's me" while thinking, "Oh God, what's next..."

"This baby's mom is HIV+," the nurse says, "and there haven't been any meds ordered..."

Yikes. Well, it wasn't that bad actually because I actually knew the dose for AZT in newborns: 2 mg/kg q6 hours.

"I think I can write for that," I say. And then I decide to make sure that I have the right dose. We were given Newborn Nursery manuals the first day which coveres pretty much all the protocols for anything. I look under Infectious Disease and HIV. It says 8 mg/kg/day. Unfortunately, it has been about 6 years since I took Calc II in college and it took me about 5 minutes to figure out that this was the same thing as 2 mg/kg q6 hours. This was after I wrote for AZT and after the nurse convinced me that the pharmacy would call me if it wasn't written for correctly. I think I might try and find a Mathematics for Dummies book next time I'm in a bookstore.