It's Just Math-Unless It's Toxic!

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Emergency Medicine
• Pharmacology

Background:

• Accurate pharmaceutical calculations are critical for safe medication administration in emergency medicine.
• Assessing the competency of emergency medicine residents in performing these calculations is essential for patient safety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the proficiency of emergency medicine residents in executing pharmaceutical calculations.
• To identify the resources emergency medicine residents utilize for pharmaceutical calculations.

Main Methods:

• A needs-assessment survey with six pharmaceutical calculation questions was administered to emergency medicine residents at a 2016 citywide conference.
• Participants' accuracy in calculations and their preferred resources (e.g., internet, clinical pharmacy staff) were recorded.

Main Results:

• Nearly 80% of residents answered at least four out of six calculations correctly, with higher accuracy in postgraduate years 2-4.
• A significant percentage of residents, particularly in earlier training years, considered accurate calculations very important.
• Internet resources and clinical pharmacy (PharmD) staff were frequently used for dose calculations, with usage increasing with training level.

Conclusions:

• Emergency medicine residents demonstrated suboptimal performance in pharmaceutical calculations, posing a risk for patient morbidity and mortality.
• Increased reliance on external resources like the internet and pharmacy staff for calculations was observed with higher postgraduate years.
• Clinical pharmacy services are extensively utilized by residents across all training levels.