A nurse is preparing to administer lactated Ringer's 400 mL IV bolus to infuse over 3 hr. The drop factor of the manual IV tubing is 20 gtt/mL. The nurse should set the manual IV infusion to deliver how many gtt/min? (Round the answer to the nearest whole number. Use a leading zero if it applies. Do not use a trailing zero)

Given: Total volume to infuse: 400 mL Infusion time: 3 hours Drop factor of tubing: 20 gtt/mL To find: Drip rate (gtt/min) Step 1: Convert infusion time to minutes 3 hours x 60 minutes/hour = 180 minutes Step 2: Calculate the total number of drops Total drops = Total volume x Drop factor Total drops = 400 mL x 20 gtt/mL = 8000 gtt Step 3: Calculate the drip rate Drip rate = Total drops / Infusion time in minutes Drip rate = 8000 gtt / 180 minutes = 44.44 gtt/min Step 4: Round to the nearest whole number 44 gtt/min