Critical Care in Nursing School

[anon695]

I'm in my 4th and final semester, and the course is critical care and pediatrics. The critical care is much harder than regular med-surg content, as 40%+ of our exams are questions on ventilators, the oxygen-hemoglobin dissociation curve, hemodynamic monitoring, etc. I have multiple NCLEX books and CDs, but rarely see any questions even remotely related to these topics. If I do, it's something very simple like calculating a MAP or they want you to know that a patient on a vent is at risk for hypotension and decreased CO. Our exam questions at school are much harder, they give us some ABG values and a vent setting, then want us to know what vent setting we should change it to, should we wean, or keep it the same, and other very high level multiple step questions. I study for critical care using Critical Care Made Incredibly Easy and the powerpoints with my notes from class, but I spend so much time on this subject that I find myself somewhat neglecting the pediatric content.

We take HESIs at the end of every semester, and I have never seen this type of high level critical care question on the med-surg HESI (there is no critical care HESI, or a critical care "success series" book). I got an A on the first exam but it took a lot of blood, sweat & tears.

We also have a hands-on critical care rotation, which I was told that most schools do not have. I'm not complaining, I'm simply curious if other schools have a hands-on rotation, an entire course of critical care content, and such high-level exam questions. I'm most curious about if my assumption is correct, that this content isn't even on HESI or NCLEX (or at least minimal and asked at a basic level like in the NCLEX books).

[W'sMama]

Wow. We don't have a specific critical care class. I'm in my last semester too, ..we do focus a lot of time on ICU type senarios and will be ACLS ceritified when we are finished. We all get one rotation on ICU (2 days).

We have talked about vents, but mainly taught that if the vent is freaking out then bag the patient and get some help! We're taught to know what the settings mean, but not to mess with the vent (that's respiratory therapy's baby!)

Don't neglect Peds. I took it last semester and it was a totaly beotch. Mainly because I have no interest in it. Be sure to know your developmental stages!

Sorry, but I don't know anything about hesi, we do ATI here.

Good luck!

[anon695]

We were told the same things, not touch the vent because that's respiratory therapy's job. But our exams are asking us about vents as if we were the ones doing it. So far, growth & development has been the hardest part of peds. I don't have kids so I had no clue about any of it. I studied that for days on end, because it seems to be the foundation. Compared to critical care, peds seems easy though!

[anon695]

We have a 3 week hands-on rotation complete with pre-clinical and patient assignments, honestly I'm very intimidated by the prospect of this. Plus, the instructor is one who has very high expectations of students!

[ckh23, BSN, RN]

You will not see those questions on the nuclex. As far as vent changes that requires an order and is out of your scope of practice but can anticipate what changes may be made.

[ImThatGuy, BSN, RN]

That sounds like a good, educational class. I'm finding acute care (med-surg) to be way too surface skimming. Where's the learning in that?

[Nepenthe Sea]

I'm running into the same thing here. I like to buy books from the Davis Success Series (Med Surg Success, Pediatrics Success, etc.). Of course, there is not one for critical care, though. It's hard for me to figure out how to study for this class. Our tests are TOUGH, too. You will see something like ABG values, vent settings, and objective signs and have to pick the right intervention. We are also learning to read EKGs, which is sometimes not real easy. We have a four-week clinical rotation where we take turns going to MICU, SICU, and CCU. I enjoy the class, and even work in a critical care unit, but it is intimidating.

[Boog'sCRRN246, RN]

When you take the NCLEX, you'll be thankful that your program gave such hard exams. My program was the same way right from the beginning; super hard exams (i.e, compared to school exams, NCLEX was easy) and all clinical rotations were very hands-on. Our final semester (Aug-Dec) was devoted solely to critical care, as were the clinicals that semester.

[TheSquire, DNP, APRN, NP]

I graduated this past November - my program did have a Crit-Care class instead of a second med-surg class, and we were all put on ICUs for clinicals that quarter. My school also has a history of its new grads going into acute-care settings that aren't med-surg and succeeding in those positions. Take that for what you will.