During our discovering mathematics module we had Dr Ellie Hothersall come to give us a presentation on the relationship between mathematics and the healthcare profession.

Ellie described that we expect everyone to have a basic understanding of mathematics but this isn’t always the case. This deems to be of huge concern as having wrong numerical calculations can be fatal within the healthcare profession.

I can relate very closely to the healthcare profession as my younger brother has spent the majority of the past four years in hospital after being diagnosed with leukaemia, cancer of the blood, when he was just five years old.

During this time in hospital a part of this was spent in the intensive care unit. This allows me to relate to the importance of data interpretation as my brother took very ill, very quickly, so the doctors took a blood sample. Within minutes the results arrived back as did a whole team of doctors. After analysing the data presented they immediately put him into a coma. Later the doctors told us at that point in time my brother had literally seconds to live.

This shows how important data interpretation and mathematical understanding is. Just being able to do quick calculations with the results saved my brothers life. Within seconds they had to insert numerous injections and wires to give the medication to save him.

This is what the doctors did, by correctly interpreting results, to save my brothers life!

Ellie emphasised that people involved with the health profession must be aware of the underlying mathematical principles of medicine when making medical decisions.

Another example of this importance is in March, 2010, an elderly lady died due to being given the wrong dose of the drug potassium chloride. The nurse calculated that the lady needed 50ml of the drug. The nurse then entered into the machine, the figure of the calculation she had previously done, which resulted in the lady’s potassium blood reading to be 7.4 instead of 4.5 (the norm) which led to her suffering a cardiac arrest. DAILY MAIL REPORTER, 23rd FEB 2011.

Both of these examples show an incredible importance to health professionals being able to do correct calculations and to interpret data and statistics accurately.