CCRN--how bad is it? (again)

Not bad. I went straight to ICU after I graduated and took it 14 months after I'd been working there. Granted my ICU is huge and busy, so I get to see a lot. My advice would be to try to understand what is happening instead of memorizing the information. Don't be intimidated, you can do it!

5 nurses in the unit I work in took the exam last yr. 3 past. I was one of the lucky ones. We all had just about 2yrs icu time (give or take a yr) we all started studing about the same time, I studied about 5 months,the last month I crashed studied for it. It seemed like I had alot of cardiac/vasoactive drug questions and vents to. Another person clamied they had more hemodynamic questions. I thought it was a tough test, 1-10 scale on toughness, I'd give it a 7-8. But I'm a dumb ole country boy from Ms. But I guess it really depends on which exam you get as far as determining how hard the exam is for you. I reviewed the book on aacn policy on clinical skills (shows you ways to perform icu nurse stuff by the aacn guidelines) Also I found the ccrn recview dvds by laura gasparis vonfrolio helped explain a lot of stuff easily for me. I used her stuff for my cen exam a few yrs ago and passed it, so I gave her another chance, glad I did. Hope you do well, just don't sell yourself short.

I took the exam a year ago and passed. I had a LOT of hemodynamics questions on my exam. Good luck!!