ABG Course (Arterial Blood Gas) Introduction

Welcome to the ABG course. Previously, we had the ABG lessons inside the labs course, but we know so many of you were looking for more resource. So we decided to pull it out, beef it up and make an entirely new course for you!

As you’ll learn in the course, Arterial Blood Gas results are a great way to get a systemic view of what’s going on with your patient. The arteries are where they should have the most oxygen, the most nutrients, because it hasn’t been dropped off in the tissues yet. With an ABG result you can really understand what’s working and what’s not working and what could be going wrong.

In this course we’re going to walk you through the physiology of acid-base balance and give you some tips and tricks on how to interpret an ABG quickly and easily. We’ll also talk about each of the four main acid-base imbalances, evaluating oxygenation status, and a few other bonus results that you will see on an ABG.

Dive in, work through the practice questions and figure out which interpretation method works best for you. We’ve also added dozens of ABG specific flashcards including some that are just straight interpretation practice! Make sure you check those out, along with all of the other resources in this lesson.

We hope this helps take some of the overwhelm out of acid-base balance and ABG interpretation. We love you guys. Now, go out and be your best self today. And, as always, happy nursing!