Creative Ways to Study Critical Care

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Hi!

I am in my last semester of nursing school (YAY!) but need some SERIOUS help! :o

My Critical Care instructor has made it abundantly clear that we will not be allowed to open our textbooks during class discussion of the chapters we are supposed to read. This is the first time any of my professors have done this and it kind of threw me for a loop.:uhoh3: I am reading the chapters and taking notes but as you all know there is a lot of information presented in nursing textbooks! I NEED HELP! Does anyone know of a creative way to remember things discussed in the chapters without writing the whole chapter down in my notebook! I would GREATLY appreciate ANY help! I really want to do well in this class and remember the information presented because when I graduate I plan to work on a CCU/ICU unit.

Thanks so much!!! :D

-Laura

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Specializes in CCRN.

Sounds as if your professor wants you to be prepared prior to the discussion. I would outline the chapter leaving myself space to take notes during the discussion. This will assist in re enforcing the content.

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I too am taking my critical care class this semester and your professor is crazy. That is so much information to understand on your own. How often do you meet. We only meet once a week for 10 weeks and go over one entire system each lecture. I can't imagine having to do that.

I would probably just outline the basic ideas. Have a basic understanding before lecture and fill in the specifics as she talked. I always feel that I hate teachers who do that, after all aren't we paying them to teach us? I always felt a textbook was more of reference than the actual teaching tool.

Good Luck

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We meet once a week as well for 2 and a half hours and just like you we cover an entired system in one lecture (at least we're supposed to, what we don't cover in class is left up to us). We have a test every other week which is why I'm DESPERATE to find a way to study. The bad thing about this whole situation and why I ended up posting in the first place is because we just got our books a week ago. We were told that we had to read the first 2 chapters of cardio before next class period (today) that was 185 pages to read!!!!!! :crying2: There was no way that I could get it done! We have class everyday and clinicals on the weekends! I'm actually somewhat bitter towards her but I guess I just have to suck it up and deal with it.

In short, I did end up outlining the chapter...got half way through one of the chapters and saw that I had 12 pages worth of notes!!! This is crazy! My little brain should have smoke coming from it by now...:uhoh3:

Thanks for your post,

-Laura

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I found knowing the basics helps...know your anatomy (where things are) and physiology (how things work). Then when your teacher asks you about the abnormal you can answer based on the foundation you built...

Whatever you do, don't memorize, it only makes you more stressed, instead, aim to understand how things happen. You can always figure out the pathophysiology when you understand the physiology.

Best of luck!

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Thanks a bunch for the suggestion! We had a guest speaker (a CRNA) come in and teach the cardio chapters to my class and he said the same thing you suggested; know the A&P and the rest is easy from there. I have been focusing my attention on this and hopefully this will help...and honestly, it made studying fun for me as I realized after knowing the A&P when something came up that was "out of whack" I was able to explain why! :yeah:

Thanks a million!

-Laura

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