Did you find Med-Surg class much harder than fundamentals?

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We are wrapping up the first semester and next year I will be in Med Surg. How much harder is it than fundamentals? What did you find was the hardest section/chapter? I'd like to read up early. Thanks.

M/S was a heck of a lot easier than Fundamentals. Everything in M/S follows a pattern, and once you get that down it's not to much deviation.

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I find Pediatrics harder than anything, even ICU! I'm on the verge of failing, a place I have never been before. It's depressing, but I'm trying to do a lot of questions to get myself acclimated to the material. I hope I can show a substantial improvement on the final.

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I'm about to finish my fundamentals course, and will have two classes next semester: med/surg and maternal/child/pediatric nursing. The classes are each 8 weeks long, and are both crammed into one semester. The material covered is consistent with a full 16 week course, but it is shoved into an 8 week course. Right now we are doing fundamentals clinicals on a surgical floor that also takes medical/surgical ICU step-down patients as well, and I love it. I love the variety, the challenge, and the pathophysiology and anatomy behind all the diagnoses, lab tests, meds, procedures, and treatments. My last patient was an acute respiratory failure from ICU with a PMH of chronic hypoxemia, acute renal failure, hypertension, type II DM, hypokalemia, CHF, COPD, asthma, and hypocalcemia. My patient before that was an exploratory laparotomy that revealed ruptured diverticuli, pericolonic abscesses, a ruptured appendix, and peritonitis. Because the patient had been suffering for weeks before coming to the hospital, he ended up with a colostomy which they hoped to reverse in several months. He also had an NG, three JP drains, and a Foley catheter when I got him. He was also on PCA morphine, several IV antibiotics, NS, KCL, Zofran, Reglan, Protonix, Insulin, and a few other meds. He was only one day post-op, and the surgeon wanted all of the output from his Foley, NG, JPs, and colostomy replaced with NS which meant that I needed to do intake and outputs basically every hour. He had tachycardia and a low-grade fever all day, and required quite a few interventions and procedures. I want to be a surgical/trauma ICU nurse after I graduate, so I love those type of patients. I love complex diagnoses, patients who need a ton of interventions, and post-surgical patients who have tons of drains, need blood, fluids, and meds, and keep you running all day, or night. Because of this, I think I will love next semester when we get into the more complicated material. Everyone at our program keeps telling us how much harder next semester will be, but I'm excited about it.

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Hated Fundamentals; thought it was difficult in many aspects. Med/surg was where everything started to make sense a heck of a lot more--I found it much easier than Fundamentals.

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Specializes in Med-Surg/urology.

I officially received my grades this morning & I passed Med-Surg 1 (on my first try..yay!!):yeah::yeah:. So I will chime in with my 2 cents. I struggled soo much during the first 8 weeks of the semester, b/c I had no clue how to test..the smartest thing I did was buy an NCLEX review book (by Saunders), and once I did that..everything made more sense. I got 80s on my last three tests of the semester :) So I just say review your material, and do NCLEX questions to help further cement the material in your mind. And if your book comes with a companion study guide, than maybe invest in that too. My book came with one, and while the questions are not NCLEX style, they did help me in terms of reviewing the content. Good luck!!!!!

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really? i thought peds was super easy! my favorite semester so far, and we did it in 7 weeks! i felt like it was kinda a review of med surg with some tweaks. my instructor was pretty cool though so it made it a lot less stressful.

Yeah, we only lost 1 person in Med Surg, but 5 people failed PEDS. I don't think it was so much the content, the questions were a lot more ambiguous than any of my other classes. Interestingly though, I finally cracked an A in Peds. I've been a fraction of a point away from an A for all my other courses. But even with the A, I still feel like it was the hardest course I've taken in nursing school thus far, those questions were tough. But when faced with adversity, I just do what I need to do. I got a low B on that first exam and knew I had to dig deeper. I hate being a few points away from the minimum pass mark so I knew I had to dig deeper for the last 2 exams. I never ever want my grade to come down to 1 exam, I like going into the final with a cushion so I studied my butt off for the last 2 exams and pulled As on those.

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Fundamentals was hardest for me but I think it wasn't because of the subject matter but because of making the adjustment to the world of nursing school.

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Specializes in cardiac-telemetry, hospice, ICU.

Ya, I agree Fundis was more concepts than concrete medical facts. Med surge is just facts, but overall there is a much greater volume of info in med surge. If you study, you will do well in both. No good way to read ahead in my opinion

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If your med-surg class isn't harder than the fundamentals class either your fundamentals was too hard or your med-surg isn't hard enough.

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