If a patient is prescribed 0.45 g of Clindamycin but only 250 mg tablets are available, how many tablets will the nurse need to give?

To determine how many tablets the nurse needs to administer, we first need to convert the prescribed dosage from grams to milligrams since the available medication is in milligram tablets.

The patient is prescribed 0.45 grams of Clindamycin. Since 1 gram is equivalent to 1,000 milligrams, we calculate the total milligrams by multiplying:

0.45 grams × 1,000 mg/g = 450 mg.

Now, we know the patient requires 450 mg of Clindamycin. The nurse has 250 mg tablets on hand. To find out how many tablets are needed, we divide the total required dosage by the amount in each tablet:

450 mg ÷ 250 mg/tablet = 1.8 tablets.

Since a nurse cannot administer a fraction of a tablet in practice, we round up to the nearest whole number, which is 2 tablets. Therefore, the correct answer is that the nurse will need to give 2 tablets. This calculation highlights the importance of dosage conversion and rounding up when necessary in clinical practice to ensure the patient receives the required amount of medication.