CCRN-CMC

missnurse01, MSN, RN · Oct 28, 2012

Yes I have heard cmc is harder. But also that csc was easier than ccrn. I only know two people in my 15 years that did the cmc. I know maybe 5 that have csc. I would like to do both but boy they r expensive !

Gemi523 · Oct 29, 2012

Hi thanks for sharing! I am scheduled to take the CMC tomorrow. I'm going to Wing it. Time has snuck up on me, I just found out im pregnant and havnt been feeling too hot. I did very well on the AACN's review questions. I found them to be quite easy. I wonder how reflective these practice questions are compared to the test. Any thoughts? What did you use to study?

AwesomeManRN · Oct 30, 2012

I have a newborn so didn't get to study near as much as I wanted. It's more in-depth medical than CCRN. It was heavy on hemodynamics, shock, ACS, CHF, pacers; and all the meds/assessment/interventions for all. The biggest difference for me between the CCRN and CMC was the style of the questions. CCRN was straightforward ie if the answer was hypokalemia they would give hypo/hyper K and hypo/hyper Na as your answer choices, more knowledge based question. The CMC was more NCLEX-y-'What's your initial action','what's your priority?'. So while it was slightly more in-depth, the difficulty of the question was increased. There were MANY times where I fought between 2 answers. I honestly don't think if I studied harder/longer or even less if it would have changed my score. Resources I used: all my CCRN study materials, Pass CCRN (CD only), and the $10 CMC AACN review question.

allnurses Guide · Nov 3, 2012

I actually found CSC harder than CMC, but it may be because I work in surgical area so didn't study that at all, while I did study for CMC. CMC was very heavy on hemodynamics and swanns, balloon pumps, care early post MI etc.