Common Electrolytes & Chemistry Values

COMMON ELECTROLYTES &CHEMISTRY VALUES

Parameter Normal Values

Serum Electrolytes

Sodium(Na)

Potassium(K)

Chloride(C)

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 134-145 mEq/L

4.5-6.8 mEq/L

95-110 mE/L

20-25mmol/L

Serum Chemistry

Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN)

Calcium (Ca)

Creatinine (Cr)

Glucose (G)

Magnesium (Mg)

Phosphorus (P) 6-30mg/dl

7.0-10

0.2-0.9

40-97

1.5-2.5

5.4-10.9

Accountability - A long word with a complex meaning

September 30, 2006

As a nurse (whether currently looking after patients or not), I am accountable for my actions and omissions. I am expected to do no harm as it were and not to practice from outside the remit within which I am competent. As a manager I am expected not to put other people into a situation where they cannot perform adequately. Only this week, I heard a colleague who is a nurse and manager telling someone how they were beginning to worry about their code of conduct because they were expecting an ever decreasing number of health visitors to manage a service. If something goes wrong in these instances it might not just be the practitioner who finds themselves before the Nursing and Midwifery Council but the manager too.

You can find the NMC here, as a member of the public you can check the qualifications of a nurse if you know their name, and you can look at the rules and regulations under which nurses must work(code of conduct, though there are others). To appear on the register you must complete a 3 year course (at least as some are longer), and some nurses have lots of qualifications which are recordable so they will have studied for much longer.

The code of conduct says things like this:

As a registered nurse, midwife or specialist community public health nurse you are personally accountable for your practice. In caring for your patients and clients, you must:

* respect the patient or client as an individual

* obtain consent before you give any treatment or care

* protect