A&P refresher book suggestions?

Nursing Students Pre-Nursing

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Hi all!

This is my first post here. Ive been a member for 2yrs, i just haven't needed to post anything. First off, I'm not a pre-nursing student, I actually just graduated from Nursing School this past Thursday but I wasn't sure where to put this post.... I'm looking for a good A&P refresher book (like A&P For Dummies or something like that). My A&P classes prior to nursing school, were a joke... I took them because the teachers were known for giving easy "A's". Needless to say, I got my "A" but my A&P knowledge is very weak... to say the least. I managed to get through nursing school, but now that NCLEX is approaching, I am struggling to meet the competency levels thru ATI that say I'm ready to test. I'm pretty sure that its because of my weak A&P knowledge... (how can i understand how a disease process affects parts of the body, if im not 100% sure how the body parts work when they are healthy =/). Any suggestions, advice, tips?

Also, I appoligize if this has been posted in the wrong spot.

Thanks in advance

Kat

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Do you think it's the anatomy or the physiology part that is getting you?

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its more the physiology I think. I'm pretty confident with the names and locations of all the parts of the body, its more of the functions and how they work... that I'm struggling with.

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I'm trying to decide which book(s) I'd recommend. There might be some pathophysiology books that would address (in brief) the healthy situation as well as the pathophys and nursing considerations. (Most A&P books, in my experience, don't talk much about the nursing considerations and instead are about facts/processes that sometimes it's hard to figure out what that means for you as a nurse. Though I've heard there ARE a few that a A&P with plenty o' nursing, I don't know who those authors are.)

Do you think reviewing A&P (or just the physio) with the hindsight of nursing school will allow you to convert the "facts" to nursing considerations/implications or are you looking for something more "nurse-y"??

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I'm not sure... For example (and this is super embarrassing to admit this by the way), i had a very hard time in Critical care this last semester when we talked about EKG's. I had a hard time connecting the concepts of what the different waves are measuring (P, QRS, T, etc) because I wasn't quite sure how the heart worked to begin with. I know that blood flows through and that it gets oxygenated and sent out to parts of the body, but i didn't know where the oxygenation took place, and what the valves did, and what artery the blood entered through, and exited through, etc. So with out knowing how the heart pumped, I couldn't figure out how the electricity was pulsing thru the heart =/. Same thing with balloon pumps... i didn't understand how the heart moves blood, so i was having a really hard time understanding what the balloon pump did. I guess I'm really embarrassed about the lack of knowledge here, and am trying to fix it...

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That example is perfect! I agree that it sounds like you need more of a physiology review (though a lot of books will be A&P), though I bet it wouldn't hurt if there was more "and this is important for a nurse..."

I have a couple books that I haven't looked at in a while, so they got moved to the basement bookshelf to make room for more recent semester books. I'll pop down there later today and see which (if any) might be useful. In the meantime, I hope your example will help other people make some recommendations for you. (I think you are SO right that a lot of it will be SO much easier once you have a firmer grasp on the normal physiology.)

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Specializes in Cardiac intermediate care.

Not sure about where you are, but where I am there is a community college that offers an A & P refresher class specifically for students (medical and nursing) about to take certification exams. You can try that route.

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thank you so much for your help!

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If anyone has suggestions of particularly good VIDEO tutorials or short animation videos on various topics, those might also help. Sometimes reading it just sounds like "blah, blah, blah" but seeing it makes all the difference. Also, you can simply search various physiology concepts on YouTube and see what you can find. (Next to the Najeeb videos that I discuss below, I can see several promising looking video shorts :) )

A friend who struggled with physiology absolutely LOVED Dr. Najeeb's lecture series on YouTube. It's NOT a simple tutorial/animation, so it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea. It's an actual lecture series, but he DRAWS as he talks about each topic. That can make a HUGE difference compared to an instructor talking over a series of pre-printed PowerPoint text & image slides. If you want to try him out, he has a series on the cardiac cycle that appears to include drawing out how the heart cycle translates into an EKG strip. That might be a good one to see if you like him.

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Actually, he also has a whole series on EKG interpretation too!

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i actually watched his EKG stuff. He is very good

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For me, Dr. Najeeb has a very hypnotic voice and I start to feel sleepy when I try to watch his videos, but I like them a LOT better than my physio instructor who ONLY lectured to publisher provided PowerPoint images.

I took physio about 1 million years ago (then had to retake so it would be recent enough for my nursing program). My first physio prof used a much older edition of the same text, so the degree of difficulty was really similar, but he also DREW as he spoke so you could follow along rather than having all the info instantly appear so that you have to try to figure out where to direct your attention. I liked it a lot better the first time around because of the drawing!

I don't have the A&P version of the "Incredibly Easy" series, but I do have the pathophysiology one and I like it quite a bit. That publisher also offers the "Incredibly Visual" option of the series for the subject. If I were you, I'd call my local Barnes & Noble to see if they have both titles so you can compare them. If they have them in stock, they can hold them for you for a few days and if they don't have them, they can order both in for you to look at. Back in the day, there was no obligation to buy and I think that's still the case. (I don't know what the difference is between the "easy" and the "visual" versions :o)

Pearson (formerly Prentice Hall) Reviews & Rationales series (by Mary Ann Hogan) also offers an A&P title (9 chapters = 1 intro + 8 dedicated to a single body system). This series overs a bullet list of key information on all/most the main topics for any given subject in an outline format. Each chapter also has 50 NCLEX-ish questions (so not straight fact spitting out, but not as complicated as most NCLEX study guides seem to have in them since A&P is the very start of nursing education). There are 20 questions in the book (along with detailed rationales for the answers) and the accompanying CD has those same 20 questions plus 30 new ones. If I was struggling with physiology, I don't think this book would be a top pick, but it's a great review (IMHO).

The "Straight A's in..." series also has an A&P book (20 chapters = 13 on body systems + repro/lactation + F&E + 5 "sub-system" intro chapters). It looks like a pretty good review and might read a bit more smoothly than the Pearson R&R series, but like the Person, doesn't have nearly as many good explanatory images as my physio text had.

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