Panic over Patho!

[masonmoore0824]

I am starting my first semester at the University of South Alabama online Adult/Gerontological Primary Care NP track. I started reading for Advanced Pathophysiology and am overwhelmed and panicking about the amount of information! Has anyone taken this class at USA and have any advice?

Any help, words of wisdom, or advice are welcome!

Thank you!

[masonmoore0824]

Also, did the PowerPoints provide much guidance for the tests? What specialty did you choose and, if it was a nurse practitioner specialty, how do you like being a nurse practitioner now?

[BostonFNP, APRN]

This course will be the foundation of your body of knowledge for advanced practice. Make every effort to avoid just "memorizing" topics; it is a disservice to you and, ultimately, your practice. Make an effort to "understand" topics. If you simply memorize for an exam than you will find yourself forgetting things you need to remember.

There are some things you do have to simply memorize, but most things require understanding.

[masonmoore0824]

Do you think it is more important to focus on the general concepts that will be applicable to practice rather than the minute details? There are so many details, I'm sure I cannot memorize all of them.

[tyloo]

There is a lot of content. Some of the test questions are very specific. Like I said before there will be questions that aren't even on the study guide. There will also be points in the study guide that you won't even have questions on. Should you focus on the study guide? Yes. Should you only worry about what is on the study guide? No. It is a hard class and is very time consuming.

I don't know how you learn best. Everyone has their own learning style. I never paid much attention to the powerpoints because I did not learn anything from them. I am the kind of person that can't learn with index cards or powerpoints. I need to see the, "whole picture." There are alot of tables and illustrations in the McCance book that helped me with that. Again the powerpoints did not give me the, "whole picture," so I render them useless for my learning style. You may find them useful. I learned alot more from reading through the chapters. I learn by repetition and looking at the tables/illustrations that were in the book. I also learned by reading the chapter summaries because they gave me the good overview of the content.

You need to be aware how you learn best and make it work for you. Good Luck.

[PNW_NPstudent]

Has anyone used a different book to help study, like Pathophysiology Made Incredibly Easy? Just starting school, but wondered if it might help a little.

[mairead07]

Tyloo:

Your study habits are similar to mine. I would tape index cards all over my home. I would study while brushing my teeth at times!! it does work.

[Umberlee]

I just started patho this semester and thus far we have just been assigned reading. There are no powerpoints, there are no study guides. There are some ancillary articles and stuff to read "for our own information" but that's it. We have some case studies (thank goodness) but as far as exams go we have no idea what will be on the tests nor really how to prepare for what we need to know out of these hundreds and hundreds of pages we are supposed to read.

I do NOT learn well by reading so this is terrifying to me. I can read my patho chapters but my mind wanders (inattentive ADD? I'd diagnose myself if I could) and I don't soak much in. I have to make myself worksheets or word matchups or something "active" to retain information. Since I have no idea what information we are going to need to know, I haven't done this because I can't just reframe hundreds of pages of text in this way. The instructor has said the tests will be timed but will be open-book so we don't need to memorize info but just be familiar enough with the text that we can find the answers quickly. How this is actually teaching us anything about patho I'm not sure...I feel, as I did during undergrad, that this is just one of those hoops to jump through in the bureacratic maze to get the license I want. Silly, for sure, aggravating, absolutely...but if it must be done, it's what I'm gonna do. Sigh.

[zmansc, ASN, RN]

Umberlee, since patho is kinda important I would suggest you make whatever tools you need to make to learn it, and have it stick. There are many websites that you can use to make crosswords and other games out of learning. If that's what it takes, I would strongly suggest you do so....

Good Luck!

[VIDASH1]

There is a lot of reading. I read everything at least once. They would give you a test guide. This was just a guide though. Some of the points on the guide you would see on the test and some questions were found that were not on the guide. Of course the guide was really general anyways. I would review what was on the guide. I read the chapter summary also.

I made an auditory recording of the material on the test guide and also the chapter summary key points. I listened to my recordings over and over again. All I can say is you have to put a lot of time in reading and studying. Taking patho, pharm, and health assessment is like having a full time job. There is a lot of material to cover in a short period of time.

You have to be organized. I am a numbers person. I would calculate the number of pages that need to be read for the test. I forget if there was a test every other week or every three weeks?? Anyways I broke down and calculated how many pages had to be read, and did my recordings while reading. I then spent the last week before the test listening to my recordings. I would listen to my recordings while commuting to work in my car and walking my dog. Really these little blocks of time add up!!

This is great advice. Thanks!

[aurealyn]

I came across your feed about Patho. You took this class about a year ago. How did you do?

And how are you doing in the NP program overall?