do you think pre- study is helpful??

Nursing Students General Students

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hello everyone... i am currently taking rereqs and i have about a year before actual nursing school ( bc i am moving to ny and i have to establish residency).

my question is... do you think its beneficial to buy nursing textbooks in advance way before school starts or do you think with out the teacher input and specific books at your university it may be more of a hindrence than a positive??

i would love to buy books and start learning terms etc..but my worry is..what if the school i attend has terms and definitions etc that vary a bit..and i learned it wrong preemptively.

any thoughts about this..and if you do think its a positive to study way in advance..do you have any specific books you would recommend??? thanks so much xo jenn

Jenn,

I was just like you! I say read anything you think will feed your passion for nursing! And perhaps a "how to survive nursing school" type book or two. But no, you probably don't need to go crazy doing a whole bunch of text reading right now.

If you're anything like me though, you probably won't be able to stop yourself! So if you simply can't help yourself, then concentrate on anything you think you're going to need help with - get those tricky concepts into your brain well in advance!

Specializes in critical care; community health; psych.

An expanded knowledge base is always beneficial. You will be ahead of the game if you retain and understand some of what you read now. The only thing I would be concerned about is whether the textbooks will still be in use when you enter your program. Nursing texts are expensive. Buy online to save bucks.

I recommend the made incredibly easy series. Fluids and Electrolytes Made Incredibly Easy isn't light reading but F&E was the toughest unit we dealt with during our fundamentals semester. It also dovetails in with A&P II kidney and lung function. Most patients you will encounter in the clinical setting will be on some type of fluid replacement. Knowing why that particular fluid was chosen is a question that commonly comes up in post-conference. It would have been nice to have had more time to study that unit.

Specializes in Critical Care / Psychiatry.

I would imagine that if reading informative books about nurses makes you happy, you should do so! I enjoy my free time far too much to do such things, however. Chicken Soup for the Nurse's soul is as close as I get! My advice is to chill out and enjoy life while you aren't going to school but I only say that because that is what makes me happy. ;)

Shel

Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.

I wouldn't recommend nursing textbooks (why pay $100 for a book you might find is not needed by the time you get there) but I second the suggestion to buy something like dosage calculations.

Specializes in ICU, telemetry, LTAC.

The recommended "pre-study" books that we bought the summer before nursing school started were: Nutrition and Diet Therapy, by Lutz and Przytulski, some Medical Terminology workbook that I enjoyed very much, and a dosage calculation book that I should have worked on a lot more. That was enough to keep us busy for a couple months.

Supplemental reading to expand your knowledge base is good, but if you've got cash, you might want to also think about your reference library that you're gonna need. Suggestions for that would be a drug book for nurses, (try to get one the year school starts, so it won't be out of date, Davis's is good, Springhouse has been known to leave some drugs out), a good medical dictionary, a nursing diagnosis book (I have one by Ackley and Ladwig, published by Mosby) and a book on laboratory and diagnositic procedures. (so you know how to read all those lab results)

None of those are really "supplemental reading" but they would all come in handy when you start, and here in my school, those are not part of the textbooks, you just should have them yourself. They are in the library but that doesn't help me at two AM in the middle of a care plan.

-Indy

Specializes in CCU.

It seems that that would be a lot cheaper than going out and buying textbooks that may/maynot be relevant.

I can recoment the Nursing made incredibly easy, Nursing 2007, American Journal of Nursing, Advance for Nursing, and Nursing Spectrum.

If you must buy a book to study, Medical terminology is the one to buy.

Just my $0.02 :)

I think that the book "Test Taking Success for Beginning Nursing Students" is a good first book to start to read before classes because it allows you to get into the 'mentality' that is nursing exams. It's also a good resource/study tool for your first semester when you are learning general concepts of care.

I LOVE the Springhouse "Incredibly Easy" series. I have the "Assessment Made Incredibly Easy" that I would recommend to any pre, current nursing student or nurse. I also have the "NCLEX Made Incredibly Easy" study guide book and have used that book this entire semester to help me study for my exams.

I would also suggest a good Pharm. Math book. I took a 2 credit Nursing Math class last summer before I began the nursing program and it helped me immensely. We used a work book called "Dimensional Analysis". It started with very very basic math concepts ie. rounding up and down, multiply decimals, etc. then progressed very gently from there into Pharmacology Math. It even had color pictures of drug labels so that you could look at them and see them as you would if you were on a floor trying to figure out a dosage.

For some really interesting reading pick up an Echo Heron book.

Here's a list of my favorite books with their ISBN numbers. Depending on where you go, you may find these at your local Barnes & Noble, Amazon, College Bookstore, etc. Or, you can always order them online some where.

Test Success: Test-Taking Techniques for Beginning Nursing Students

by Patricia M. Nugent, Barbara A. Vitale

0803605242

DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS FOR MEDS

by Anna M. Curren

076685938X

Assessment Made Incredibly Easy (Made Incredibly Easy)

by Springhouse Corporation, Janet R. Barrett, Springhouse

ISBN: 1582551332

Nclex-Rn Questions & Answers Made Incredibly Easy! Plus Nclex-Rn 250 New-Format Questions: Preparing for the Revised Nclex-Rn (Made Incredibly Easy)

by Springhouse, Lippincott, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

1582553092

Specializes in Emergency Dept, M/S.

I also have subscriptions to nursing mags, and have several nursing books, and yes, even NCLEX books. I find them interesting!

I also do a lot of pre-reading before a course. I start A&P next week, but have already gone through about 3 chapters, taking notes, making flashcards, etc., and using the study guide I ordered along with the books (it's a workbook - coloring! Yippeee! :chuckle )

I certainly think if you ENJOY it, there is no harm. But I agree not to buy textbooks for an un-Godly amount of money when the chances are slim to none that it will be the one you need. If you can get one off of eBay for $5 though..............I've gotten several books off of there, and they're great. I love the ones that come with CD's (and so does my aspiring-doctor-to-be-7yo son!).

thank you all soooooooooooooooooo very much for your feedback... it sounds like the consensus it that it cant hurt..but be careful bought buying "textbooks" ..but more nursing made easy, and terminology books and the like. also magazines... i really appreciate this.

does anyone have a math book they would recommend? i tried finding a math for dummies but my local store didnt have one... i am pretty math inadequate and i also wonder if i should brush up on that before i delve into these other materials.

this is sooo exciting!!!! woooohooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!! again thanks so much for taking your time to share what has helped you xo jenn

I would suggest not studying textbooks too far in advance. Nursing school is pretty stressful and requires A LOT of reading and time. If you start too early, you may find you burn out before you finish.

If you want to start doing some reading, I would recommend a "How to survive nursing school book", or maybe a NCLEX prep book so you start to learn the formatting of the questions. You could also read some nursing journals like Nursing2004 or AJN. It may be helpful to begin learning some pharmacology also as there are a lot of meds to know.

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