The following ABG results were obtained on a 28-year-old female patient:

This is just a classic ABG interpretation question. You likely won’t see many of these on the TMC Exam because at this point, the NBRC will assume that you already know how to interpret ABGs. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have made it this far.

With that said, you still absolutely MUST know how to interpret them because you will be required to do so for SEVERAL questions on the exam.

So now let’s go ahead and interpret this one. The pH is decreased which means acidosis. The Bicarb and Base Excess levels are severely decreased, which tells us that there is a metabolic issue. The low PaCO2 tells us that the patient is trying to compensate by hyperventilating, but since the pH is still outside of the normal range, there is only partial compensation.

So we know that the correct answer has to be B.

The correct answer is: B. Partially compensated metabolic acidosis