[twilight3]

Hi!!!

I am in my last semester in nursing school and need help and advice immediately! We took our first critical care tests today, and I failed it. The questions were hard for me and i don't know why because i studied off and on for two weeks.

I don't know what to do, we only have a month and a half left until the class ends. Please give me advice on studying for these tests. What is the mind set you have to have in order to answer the questions? What sort of questions do you ask yourself when you are given report and about to assess the patient.

Before nursing school I was an average student. Throughout nursing school I became the student that always needed additional help. The instructors told us if you are weak, than this critical care course is going to eat you alive. But i don't want to be eaten alive, this is my last semester and I want to graduate.

By the way, you critical care nurses are so smart because if you have think the way the test was presented to us, than you are a smart cookie! I don't think I will ever reach that level.

[stressgal]

First, step back and take a deep breath.
I do not the content you were tested on so my advice would be to talk with your instructor. Ask to go over the exam, figure out why you answered the way you did and why the correct answers were the "best" answers. Many times with critical thinking questions you are given a lot of information that you need to sort through. Kind of pick through the info and find the important items. This takes knowledge, practice and time.
Good luck!

[Brooke1984]

I failed my critical care course, had to retake it, and now i am a critical care nurse....this is all within the the last year...i passed my critical care course in fall 2006...i got a 60% on my first test, so I feel your pain...here is my advice...

Are you studying to memorize, or are you understanding....the first time around I had all the cardiac meds memorized......lopressor is a beta blocker, cardizem is a CCB....you NEED to understand the physiologic process of those meds, why does a beta blocker effect the heart the way it does, what is the difference b/w beta 1 and beta 2....get me ? also, know the blood flow through the heart like the back of your hand...you really need to overlook your A n P again if you don't have all of that stuff fresh in your head...so my best advice is to UNDERSTAND it...firs time around I was memorizing....

Secondly, I don't know what book you use, but ask your teacher for any other critical care books she has that you can borrow....different books offer diff. info and explain diff.....that REALLY helped me....my cc teach. had A TON of diff. books....it really really helped....i learned more and understood things by reading different material...it also helps to change things up, so your not constantly reading the same book.....get a cc. bookand take practice questions....i used the Saunders 2007 NCLEX review book, i went through the systems in that book which was great...any nclex book will have critical care questions, use them if you need to find more questions, and plus, your practicing for your NCLEX...hope this all helps


Brooke

[twilight3]

Does anyone have any pointers when it comes to critical thinking?

[ready4crna?]

twilight-
My first question is this- was the test strictly physiology based or scenario based (incorporating physiology/pharm/assessment into questions.)?
To help you a little- were they questions similar to these:
Physiology:
In a patient with SIADH, what would you expect your sodium to be?

Scenario:
After a head injury, your patient's serum sodium is low and urine sodium elevated with a relatively elevated urine osmo, what disease process would this indicate and what interventions would be indicated?

Scenario tests are harder(for most people) in that they force you to integrate knowledge rather than spew facts. If this is where your faculty is taking you, then try the Critical Care made incredably easy books. they will help with integration questions.

As far as critical care in general there are three questions that ran through my head as I assessed patients every day in order to guide my interventions. 1.) What's going to kill 'em now? 2.) what's going to kill em in a couple of hours and 3.) What do I have to do to make them live through the next shift?
We all go through stages of critical thinking, particularly in critical care where the learning curve is traditionally steep. If you could get it all in nursing school, hospitals would not need to have internships that last for 3-6 months after you graduate. Trust me, critical care is attainable to anyone with the determination to learn.

[twilight3]

Hi!!!
The test were scenario based with tons of labs in each question. You have to determine in your mind the the highs, lows and norms. With that, what condition is your patient in and what are you going to do about it.

What threw me off was in class the patho and cardiac surgeries were the focus of the lecture. The nursing interventions were not really disussed. If I could turn back time I would have studied differently and not changed answer. Now we only have one test and a final, which means I have to work hard.

I wish I were as smart as my classmates. By the looks of it, they passed and were happy. I am part of a class where everyone is smart except me. They are judgemental and love say, " I wouldn't trust her as my nurse." That bothers me so much and makes me question myself. And I hate group work with them because I get nervous and say wrong things, which comes off as being incompetent.

For anyone reading this please remember me. I have only 5 weeks left in the critical care course. If I don't pass, I don't graduate. Nursing school has been a struggle and it would mean the world if I could attend the pinning ceremony, graduate, and become a nurse.

Thanks for reading!!!