Recommended Nursing Books for RN Students

[MystyqueOne, BSN, RN]

Hello,

I have been a member on here for quite some time, but mainly just reading and learning all has to say and speak about. I'm about to start my BSN program this July 2009 in which it would take me two years to finish (I already have the first year knocked out due to all my transferred courses). I absolutely love going to Borders book store and always find myself in the medical/nursing section. I always pick up some of the nursing books and would absolutely LOVE tp purchase some, but they are always so expensive. So, I have decided to wait until I get a coupon for a percentage off of a book. Well, now's the time I finally got a 30% coupon off of a book, so my question to you all is: Throughout your nursing education and/or nursing career, what educational books can you NOT live without? Or what books helped you so much throughout school that you'd recommend them to anyone else going through nursing school? I've heard of the "Incredibly Made Easy" series and just received my first issues of the following magazines: Nursing Made Incredibly Easy, Nursing 2009, and AJN (which I absolutely love all three of them, especially the Made Easy ones).

Thank you all and I look forward to reading your suggestions on recommended nursing books. Please let me know why you would recommend those books, also.

Thanks!

[Neoma]

I'm first year still, and two books that I swear by:

Nursing Diagnosis Handbook; An Evidence-Based Guide to Planning Care is great for doing care plans.

Saunder's NXCLEX Review is another. When I'm getting ready for an exam, I go over my notes, but I also use this to 'quiz' myself on the material also.

Hope that helps, and good luck in school.

Maryann

[Laurinq]

I couldn't have gotten through pathophysiology without my Pathophysiology Made Incredibly Easy!. I agree with you, I do love the Incredibly Easy Series, I have the Best of Incredibly Easy, Fluid and Electrolytes and Medical-Surgical Nursing. Hoorah, that you have a coupon :anpom:, always handy. I got all my books online :typing and saved so much money! Most of them were under $15.00 and that includes S&H (some were of course used, but they look great!). Get the ISBN and then go to a website like campusbooks.com, it's a great search engine for finding the best priced books! Highly recommend

[Cat in TX]

Be sure and check some of the large online discount sites, like Amazon and Overstock, too. They have quite a few of the popular nursing titles.

[Krisymof2]

The Memory Notebooks of Nursing books are great!

Also the Kaplan NCLEX review book is great for teaching you how to figure out what the questions are REALLY asking, this book literally saved me in my 2nd Med-Surg. semester.

[aerorunner80, ADN, BSN, MSN, APRN]

Why don't you save your money for now and wait to see what your school recommends?

I've found that extra books really aren't needed, especially for care plans. Some people in my class bought care plan books with "everything you need to know". These are great except that the interventions listed don't always pertain to your patient so you are creating more work by adding another book to look through and then cite as a reference when the books that your school says you need already has everything in it you need. If you have a good nursing diagnosis book (which is a requirement for school and a book title will be given to you by your program), your interventions will already be in there as well.