this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What kind of math will you be doing? It's a night and day difference between going back to college for a physics degree, versus accounting...

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm considering nursing, so an ASN degree. I think it's just algebra 1 and chemistry, which I've been told involves quite a bit of math

[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ah, yes, systems of linear equations. If you're a paramedic, you'll probably be fine and have an intuitive understanding of most of this stuff already. The jargon and notation will throw you off, probably, but you'll probably pick it up quickly.

Practical problems you'll face are things like: if I deliver 10 mg of a drug, and it has an uptake of 50% per hour, and a functioning liver removal rate of 10% per hour, and I want to ensure that there's 5 mg in the patient's bloodstream at all times, how big of a dose and how often...

But the reality is: you'll have a table to reference and won't likely need to calculate this on a regular basis. What you will need to do is trust the table, and for that, you have to understand how the table was made :)

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Oh yeah, I'm not too worried about it in the field. I've been in healthcare for 8 or 9 years now, I'm hip with the lingo and equipment involved. The hectic nature of EMS jives with my ADHD pretty well but the structured environment of college and my lost familiarity of more advanced math is what's concerning to me. I have terrible time management in lower stakes stuff like appointments, due dates, etc.

[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago

Some people are "plan and prepare" and some people are "react and respond" -- and some are good at one or the other but not both :)