Hi, I'm Cathy with Level Up RN. In this video, I will be going over the most common metric system prefixes that you will likely encounter with dosage calculation problems. And then I will provide several examples of converting within the metric system using three different methods, dimensional analysis, ratio and proportion, and the move the decimal point method. You can find all the information that I'll be covering in this video in our Level Up RN dosage calculation workbook. If you are in nursing school, then you know how important it is to master dosage calculations. And our workbook will help you do just that. In a nutshell, our workbook contains all different types of dosage calculation problems that you are likely to encounter in nursing school. And we demonstrate how to solve each problem using multiple methods so you can pick the way that makes the most sense to you.
All right. In this video, we are going to go through some example problems of converting within the metric system, okay? And in order to do this, you really need to know your metric system prefixes. The prefixes here on this side of my board represent the most common prefixes that you will see in dosage calculation problems in nursing school. There's obviously other metric system prefixes out there, but these are the ones you're really going to see. So we have micro, which means one-millionth; milli, which means one-thousandth; centi, which means one-hundredth; deci, which means one-tenth; and kilo, which means one thousand. So definitely memorize those because you need those to solve the problems.
So we are going to convert within the metric system using three different methods. We're going to use dimensional analysis, ratio and proportion, and then simply moving the decimal point. So it might be a little overkill to you for us to be solving these problems with dimensional analysis and ratio and proportion. But it's good to get used to these methods and how they work when the problems are really easy so that way you know how to use those methods when we get to the more complicated problems.
Okay. So let's first solve this example problem using dimensional analysis. In this problem, we want to convert 1.6 meters into centimeters. So we're going to write down our current units, which are 1.6 meters, and we're going to multiply times the appropriate conversion factor. So we know that there are 100 centimeters in 1 meter. And I need to set up my ratio just like that so that the meters will cross off. And if I multiply this out, I'll be left with centimeters. So when you do this multiplication, you end up with 160 centimeters. So that's how you would solve this with dimensional analysis.
Let's now solve this with ratio and proportion. So the known ratio, we know that 1 meter equals 100 centimeters. That's our known ratio. And we want to know for 1.6 meters, how many centimeters is that? So that's our unknown value right there. Next, we're going to cross-multiply here. So X times 1 is just X, and then 1.6 times 100. If you multiply that out, we end up with 160 centimeters. So we end up with the same answer. It took a few more steps, as you can see.
All right. And then finally, we're going to solve this using the move the decimal point method. So we have 1.6 meters. And we are going from a larger unit of measure to a smaller unit of measure with a change of two units. So we want to move our decimal point to the right two units. So if we do that, we end up with 160, okay? And in our next problem, we'll be moving the other way. It just really depends if you're going from larger to smaller or smaller to larger. So again, this is the move the decimal point method that can be used for the metric system. This method doesn't work for any of the other problems we're going to solve in these videos, though.
Let's now go through our second metric system conversion problem. So with this problem, we have 450 micrograms, and we want to convert that to milligrams. So let's first do it with dimensional analysis. So we'll write down our current units, so 450 micrograms. And then we're going to multiply that times the applicable conversion factor. So we know that there are 1,000 micrograms in one milligram. And I set up my ratio just like that so that my micrograms will cross off. And if we multiply this out, we end up with 0.45 milligrams. And again, I've got that leading 0, no trailing 0. This is the correct way to write this number. All right. So that's dimensional analysis.
Let's now work through this problem with ratio and proportion. So with ratio and proportion, we want to put down our known ratio. So 1,000 micrograms is in 1 milligram. And we want to know for 450 micrograms, how many milligrams is that? So that's our unknown value. This is our known ratio. So now we're going to cross-multiply here. So we're going to end up with 1,000 X equals 1 times 450, so 450. And then we're going to solve for X. So X equals 450 divided by 1,000. And we end up here with 0.45. So same answer.
And then finally, let's use that move the decimal point method that we can use for metric system conversions. So here we have 450 micrograms, and we want to get to milligrams. So we are going from a smaller unit of measure to a larger unit of measure with a change of three units. So we want to move the decimal point, which is assumed to be right there, to the left, three places. So one, two, three. So we're going to end up with 0.45. Again, we want that leading 0, no trailing 0. And that's how we would solve this with moving the decimal point.
