Lesson Learned - Small Meltdown :P

[BeachCathyRN]

OK decided this week that on my 3rd 12 hour work day in a row I needed to study when I got home since I had not studied the last two days and my CPNE is just 4 weeks away. Even though I have all areas of care memorized and if you woke me at 3am and held a gun to my head I could recite them. I also have my labs down to 5-7 min. each. But still needed to study that day - picked a PCS from my list of saved ones-did the care plan in 5 min but when I got to the charting couldn't remember a thing-total blank. I have been charting on patients for over 30 years but totally blanked so then I decided what was I doing I couldn't pass this - what was I thinking - I need to postpone my CPNE - yep total meltdown!! Even shed a few tears then said I give up and went to bed which is what I should have done to start with!!

Got up the next morning and charted everything perfectly - lesson learned -DO NOT try to study when you're tired!! :lol2:

[Nervous1]

Oh lord! Note to self, do not study after working 3 12's in a row....get some rest first, because you know you will be rested before your CPNE anyway..or you hope to. I'm having a hard time right now with the AOC. I've got the Required AOCs and Assessment AOCS memorized by mneumonics. THe big ones in the management, I'm ok with but the Irrigation/Specimen Collection/Meds/Enteral Feed/Pt teaching I am having trouble memorizing them all. Then when I do get one completely memorized, I go back and do an easy management and can't figure out 1 item in my mneumonic. But I have only been studying for 2 weeks so far and not intensively.

I need a study plan!!!!!!! I need a list of what to do each day......when I wake up in the morning, I write out my mneumonics but then draw blanks on the last ones. I am trying to study at least 2 hours a day. But getting my mneumonics down is my road block. I have not been practicing my labs yet, other than the wound. I just need a plan right now, especially if I want to try and test at the end of May, but no date yet.

[BeachCathyRN]

This worked for me - I wrote my mnemonics on index cards and taped them to my bathroom tub wall and my bathroom mirror, loaded them on my phone and computer so I studied them constantly!! When getting ready in the morning, taking a bath at night and any slow times at work. I took them down as I had them memorized and now just have a few cards on the wall of them but with all the AOC's on them and just review them everyday. I thought I would never get them down but now they are imbedded in my brain - couldn't forget them if I wanted!

Once I got them down I started on labs, next was refining my documentation using the AOC mnemonics and finally printing out the packets like we will get at CPNE and filling them out start to finish, including Grids so hopefully no surprises when I get there!! Sheri had this in a post one time do one thing at a time - get one area down then move to the next. Made sense to me so that is what I've done and so far so it's working. At first I ran around in circles trying to do it all at the same time but just confused me.

Good Luck studying - we will be RN's in 2012!!!