Advanced Assessment - Any tips?

[Teleflurry, DNP]

Good Day People,

I'm looking for any resources that helped you out when you were learning advanced assessment - books, videos, techniques, etc. I'm a BSN-DNP student in year two - and I take advanced assessment in two weeks, and wanted to see how you learned the new techniques for your patients. I'm been a nurse for 11 years and work in ICU, but being in a primary care program for my doctorate will have me looking at things I can say with an honest heart, I've NEVER looked at. (Ears? People have ears?! - lol) Thanks community !

-Teleflurry

[zmansc, ASN, RN]

Humm, hard question to answer because your looking for general information. There are a lot of youtube videos these days on how to do specific parts of an exam. I haven't had to look at them in a few years because I work in the ED, so we have to be able to do these exams for the weirdest of reasons.... lol

One exam I never had to do for my ED job that I had to pick up was eye exam. For the basics, I practiced on a few coworkers during slow times. We had otoscopes and opthalmoscopes hanging on the walls of every room in the ED, so I could simply examine any sucker I could talk into it. I also purchased a reasonable set so I could practice on my family, but they weren't near as willing of guinea pigs as my coworkers were :) lol

If your referring to practicing auscultation, palpitation, or percussion, I practiced and still do practice that on my patients every chance I get. I did watch a few youtube videos on percussion, still find myself questioning my skills at times. In general youtube and your physical assessment book will help you with the basic how to of any specific exam, practice on whomever you can will help you to remember how to do it long term, and then it's up to you to figure out how to combine them into certain focused and general exams.

[ryguyRN]

Here is a great site you could check out with good information.

The 25 - Stanford Medicine 25 - Stanford University School of Medicine

I hear you, I know what you mean, you will also be using these in your class as well as clinicals. Does your program have an onsite check off?

[2015]

The health assessment textbook that my school used had videos for every clinical skill that we needed to know prepared my Mosby. I highly recommend it. Sidel et al. Personally, I have not benefited by delving into material recommended by people who are not in my program. Schools slay the cat in many different ways and you don't want to increase your workload more than it's necessary. Your program should provide you with the resources you need. I bought a pathophysiology book that was recommended on this website, but I never had time to open it because my school already had us buy a study guide and a huge a+p textbook that you would never finish reading (all questions came from there), and hours and hours of recorded lectures and printed materials. Do you need more if you have kids, a job and are in school fulltime? I think not.

[Juliefin, BSN, MSN, APRN, NP]

Recommend Bates assessment book, great!