Desperate for a PBDS guidance

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I will be starting my first travel nurse assignment at Broward Hospital in Fort Lauderdale. I was not informed about this PBDS test until after I accepted the position and according to my recruiter if i dont pass the test I wont get the job. The travel agency has no study guides for this test. Are there any nurses out there who had the PBDS for a nicu position?

Where there nicu scenarios? What kind of conditions?

I dont even know where to start studying from.

Thanks.

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Specializes in Acute Care Cardiac, Education, Prof Practice.

I had to look up what PBDS stood for and found this: http://www.medicalsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/PBDS-Testing-Guide.pdf

Perhaps that helps?

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Whew! I got here as quickly as I could...

PBDS is an assessment of clinical competency. It is administered online. There are several different sections, but contract nurses usually don't receive all of them, so it should only take ~ 3 hours.

There are two very unique aspects of PBDS. First of all, all of your responses will be free text... no 'forced selection' (multi-choice, T/F, etc)... so everything you enter will be words right from your own brain, typed onto the screen. Your responses will be analyzed and evaluated by a real human being using a structured, qualitative analysis process that compares your response to a model answer. Don't worry, they don't count off for spelling or grammar. Your demographics (education, certifications, experience) will be factored in to the evaluation... e.g., expectations for a very experienced nurse are higher than for an inexperienced one.

The 'meat' of the assessment is a group of video scenarios... I think there are two clusters of 5 in the NICU assessment that were filmed in an actual hospital, with real babies.. some are very ill. Each one is only 3-5 minutes long. You'll watch each one and then respond by (typing) into an onscreen form: 1. What is the problem? you can use medical terminology or Nursing Dx... but if you use ND, you need to include at least three parts (Dx, due to, as evidenced by). 2. What are you going to do for the problem... include both independent & interdependent interventions. Be SURE to include details rather than simply general terms (e.g., "inform physician of pulse, heart rate, serum Na," rather than "report findings to physician") 3. Indicate the priority of your interventions... just add "Now", "immediate", or something to the most urgent interventions...

Piece of cake, right? All you have to do is listen carefully and follow all the instructions on the screen. Don't overthink. Include all details. Each section is timed, so keep an eye on the little clock in the bottom right of the screen.

You'll be fine.

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Thanks for that great explination. Have you had a NICU pbds? do you know what diseases i should focus on? if you had a nicu pbds , can you give me an example scenario?

Thanks so much.

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