# i need help,i need to know a few things about being a medical tech



## michaelciwan (15 Oct 2015)

hey guys i got my aptitude test soon and i am hoping to be a medical tech but i am not too sure how importent math is to a med tec i am really bad at match but i did get my grade 11 science and was almost done with 12 so if anyone can help me please do thanks


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## mariomike (15 Oct 2015)

michaelciwan said:
			
		

> hey guys i got my aptitude test soon and i am hoping to be a medical tech but i am not too sure how importent math is to a med tec i am really bad at match but i did get my grade 11 science and was almost done with 12 so if anyone can help me please do thanks



This may help,

?MATH?
http://army.ca/forums/threads/109763/post-1214925.html#msg1214925
Reply #8


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## MedCorps (15 Oct 2015)

As a Jr Med Tech math is mostly used to calculate drug dosages, oral, injectable and IV.  

For instance,  Dilantin, 0.1 g is ordered by the Medical Officer to be given through a nasogastric tube. Dilantin is available as 30 mg / 5 mL. How much would the QL5A Med Tech administer?

Or... Calculate the IV flow rate for 1200 mL of NS to be infused in 6 hours. The issued infusion set is calibrated for a drop factor of 15 gtts/mL. What is the drop rate per minute you set the infusion set to deliver?  

Needless to say the tolerance for error when administering / calculating medications is very low. There are about 10 types of calculations you will be expected to perform.  These will be taught and tested on your QL3 / QL5A Med Tech courses.  

As you get up in rank math will be more utilitarian. 

For instance, 

A clinic has 3 Care Delivery Units (CDU). CDU 1 has sees 15 patients a day, CDU 2 sees 32 patients a day, CDU 3 sees 14 patients a day. 22 of these patients are booked and the remainder are "walk in".  What is the average number of patients seen by the clinic a day. What percentage of these patients are booked appointments and what percentage are walk in? 

Your medical treatment facility (MTF) has 7 casualties to evacuate 40 km to the Brigade Medical Station (BMS).  The ground evacuation rate of movement factor is fixed for this operation at 30 km/H due to congestion on the evacuation routes. The ambulance can take only 3 casualties at a time due to a broken litter kit in the back. Add 10% to your final number as a safety calculation How long will it take to evacuate all the casualties? If your evacuation of casualties leaves at 14:23 when will they arrive at the BMS?  When will the ambulance return to your MTF for the next load?  

It is not "higher" functions math such as differential geometry or number theory but basic math skills are important to the Med Tech and the casualties they treat.    

Good luck with you application. 

MC


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## ModlrMike (15 Oct 2015)

I would add that spelling, capitalization, sentence structure, and grammar are just as important.


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## BinRat55 (15 Oct 2015)

ModlrMike said:
			
		

> I would add that spelling, capitalization, sentence structure, and grammar are just as important.



 :goodpost:


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## Armymedic (16 Oct 2015)

Med Techs are required to do clear and concise patient notes. 

Perhaps time studying English would be better spent.


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## BinRat55 (16 Oct 2015)

MedCorps said:
			
		

> As a Jr Med Tech math is mostly used to calculate drug dosages, oral, injectable and IV.
> 
> For instance,  Dilating, 0.1 g is ordered by the Medical Officer to be given through a nasogastric tube. Dilantin is available as 30 mg / 5 mL. How much would the QL5A Med Tech administer?
> 
> ...



I just reread MedCorps' post... Lol! Really? Geez ya coulda just said "yeah, it's important..." Now i'm thinking about Keanu Reeves on a bus...

There's a patient with a bad case of the drip, you have only 5 mgs of penicillin. It takes 3 to eradicate your skank-given, crotch-infesting VD and there's not enough for both of you.... what do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO???

Join the Army and become a SUPPLY TECH!!! (We don't need to know how to count...)


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## mariomike (16 Oct 2015)

I wonder if the original poster will pass CFAT. This was the applicant's first and, so far at least, last post.

Date Registered: Yesterday at 02:16:02
Last Active: Yesterday at 02:36:22


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## Blackadder1916 (16 Oct 2015)

BinRat55 said:
			
		

> I just reread MedCorps' post... Lol! Really? Geez ya coulda just said "yeah, it's important..." Now i'm thinking about Keanu Reeves on a bus...
> 
> There's a patient with a bad case of the drip, you have only 5 mgs of penicillin. It takes 3 to eradicate your skank-given, crotch-infesting VD and there's not enough for both of you.... what do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO???
> 
> Join the Army and become a SUPPLY TECH!!! (We don't need to know how to count...)



Obviously!

As well, we also shouldn't depend on you for medical advice, particularly if it's a mate who asks you what he should do about his drip.  As an aside, that has actually happened to me - after I was no longer a Med A, on Inf Phase trg in Gagetown, one of the FNs (foreign national student, not the rifle which we were still using) found himself with a bit of a problem because he had spent some time with one of the "popular" girls he met at the Cosmo.  He was worried that if his diagnosis was officially recorded it would, along with all his other records, be sent to his home country, a Muslim state in the Persian Gulf region.

Even then, nigh on 30 years ago, gonorrhea was becoming resistant to penicillin.  I don't know what treatment my Arab friend received at the Base Clinic (my only involvement was a quiet word to friends/former colleagues to ensure that the information was stripped from his med records before he returned home) but it is possible that by then (30 years ago) penicillin was not the first choice antibiotic for N. Gonorrhea; now, it is not even considered.  If you want to know what treatment guidelines look like for the drip try here.  If MedCorps' example of medical math made your head hurt, prepare for a real headache.

Back in the day (when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the urban legend about the dreaded "black syph" abounded in Cyprus and the Sinai) we still used penicillin to treat N. Gonorrhea infections.  Of course, it wasn't no "nancy boy" regimen of oral antibiotics; you got shots, in the backside, with a large bore, blunt needle.  And surprise, we medics needed math to figure out not only how much to give you, but also how to prepare it.  Though it was probably available back then in an injectable suspension, all we saw in operational areas were vials of penicillin powder that first had to be reconstituted by the addition of a liquid.  As dosage of penicillin was in "units", and the recommended therapeutic dosage for uncomplicated gonorrhea was 2.4 million units (for males - double it for females) of procaine Pen G (I looked it up in my very, very obsolete Merck, 12th edition) by I.M. injection, how much "Sterile Isotonic Sodium Chloride Solution for Parenteral Use" do you add to a 5 million unit vial of Pen G in order to get a suspension 500,000 u. per ml (I deliberately made the problem easy).  Now, how many injections (and size) do you give the sorry SOB if a single I.M. injection site should not receive more 800,000 to 1,000,000 u. because of potential sensitivity.  While the numbers may be a bit off that was an actual calculation I had to do more than 35 years ago in Ismailia.  The poor sod got three or four shots, mostly due to a very slim build without a lot of muscle mass in the ass to accept the rather thick solution.  IIRC, I think he was a Sup Tech.  We hospitalized him later that day because of localized reactions, and since he needed the same dosage the following day, put him on an IV.  I bet he remembered to wrap before using in the future.


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