New nursing student going into MedSurg. Any advice?

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Hello everyone, I just finished my first semester in my nursing program which was fundamentals. To be honest I did struggle a little bit because everything was and still is new to me. You see, in my program everything is self taught. The professors do not teach at all and everything is pure textbook. I need to teach myself everything and read the textbook on my own. I had a 4.0 GPA but sadly I had to kiss it good bye. I am starting second semester in February, which will be MedSurg. Unfortunately, I have to teach everything myself again and I have heard that MedSurg is tough and confusing to understand. I have the whole month of January to prepare. Does anyone have any advice or any books that really helped them? I am open to ANY suggestions, I'm so desperate for help. I would also appreciate advice for test taking tips for MedSurg. Please reply to my message, I really appreciate it. Thank you all! Happy new year!

Can you please give me the links because there are so many books with similar names. Thank you!

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I'm sorry i didn't know. How do I change it?

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Kaplan is the name of the book and Saunders is a comprehensive of all body systems that breaks it down and helps you answer questions. Plus you get a dial with hundreds of questions.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

This book --> Pearson Reviews & Rationales: Medical-Surgical Nursing: 978�133�836�6: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com

And this book --> Saunders Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-RN® Examination, 7e (Saunders Comprehensive Review for Nclex-Rn): 978�323358514: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com

And this one --> HESI Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-RN Examination, 5e: 978�323394628: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com

I used these books during med-surg class (older editions). The Hesi book has very good, to the point content in addition to questions. The Saunders and HESI book are new editions but the old editions are still around and are less expensive.

If I had to pick one, I would get the Saunders book.

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Hi!

I just finished my Associates Degree in Nursing. Med Surge was mostly my last two semesters of my nursing program. I think a big part of Med Surge with assessing patients is truly the ABCs (sounds stereotypical, but true!). On Medical-Surgical floors, there are a lot of things that can go wrong very quickly. Critical thinking skills is such an important part of assessments in the Med-Surge world especially. Another thing to remember: clinicals may be CRUMMY because it feels as if you do not know ANYTHING on the floor. However, I had many nurses tell me that Med-Surge is such a diverse floor with so many different diagnoses/problems that there is no way that you will know how to do everything as a student. It takes time to be confident on a floor such as Med Surge. Best of luck to you in your program :)

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Congrats on passing your first semester!

I am an oncoming third semester student in an ADN program and the book, Med Surg Nursing demystified really helped out a lot.

Another tip I have is to look up common disease processes you think you will probably be studying in class or if the syllabus is already available to you study the ones on the syllabus. For each disease process I would make a concept map which is basically like a web with the disease in the middle and things like it's pathology and etiology in one area it's signs and symptoms like what you would be looking for during an assessment, common lab values and diagnostic tests, medical interventions, nursing interventions and complications from that disease. If you get a head start by doing this than you can use your actual class time to ask your teacher questions on specific areas that were a little cloudy for you.

Hope this help!

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As for a self directed nursing program, perhaps I can shed a little light as I am in one at a Community College in NY state. Being a CC it is much more affordable than the two local private hospital programs and has a 90% NCLEX pass rate. Here is how it works. We take a 1 course class in each of the fundamentals each semester " Activity and rest" "Nutrition and elimination" etc. in which we get all of our readings and assignments online via blackboard and when we are ready, we go to the testing center to test out on a particular chapter exam, say Test #2 out of 4 in " Psychology and communication". You have to pass all 5 courses and their attendant tests to move onto level ( semester) 2. The first 8 weeks we met one day a week for "lab" to work on basic clinical skills. The second eight weeks, we began our clinicals in the hospitals and the first 2 semesters are ALL med-surg. The toughest are the procedures, as they have all 40 or so of us meet for an hour in one room as an instructor up front ( 20 feet away) goes through the 28 steps of hanging a saline IV. From that distance and with no other perpetration, we are looking at each other like " what the hell is Luer lock ? " . Then we are supposed to practice on our own and "watch video's" and then make an appt to test out 1 on 1. We have 2 chances and then we have to repeat the course. If we are lucky, we will have a nice instructor in clinical who will let us watch or assist so we have more of an idea of what we are supposed to be doing. If you are not so lucky, you may have the psych nursing instructor who hasn't had to do a feeding tube in years, test you out and all she has to go by is the sheet with the 20 something steps to check off. This is why the videos don't always help because they all do things differently.

Many are having a problem with the theory courses and tests as it's basically reading a few chapters on your own and figuring out what is important and then taking a 30 question NCLEX style test. As an adult who loves reading, science, latin root words and puzzles, I actually enjoy the tests and haven't failed one yet. Others who have more experience in the med field are having an easier time than I with the procedures. I will be entering my 2nd semester in a few weeks, hopefully I will figure out a way to teach myself the procedures with a little less stress and agony than last semester !

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Definitely purchase Saunders as a lot of people have been saying. But when it comes for studying exams I always made charts with columns that had,

All the diseases that were going to be on the exam and answered the items below for each...

1. Etiology (who often gets the disease --> age, gender, ethnicity)

2. Main signs and symptoms

3. what confirms the diagnosis? --> tests, labs, pain location etc.

4. Interventions (Surgery, self-resolving, repositioning etc)

5. Special diets... and what types of food provide that diet

6. Goals.. basically what confirms that the patient is getting better

It helps to focus your studying... Good luck, Med Surg is a tough one but you can do it! And don't worry, I had to kiss my 4.0 prereq GPA goodbye too :yes:

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Are you paying to fully teach yourself? Doesn't sound like a good program.... Or is that normal?

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No, not fully but mostly. The professors breeze through the material and some (a lot) of them have a Masters or Ph.D and get assigned to teach nursing basics like Patho and Fundamentals that they haven't taken in 15+ years and can't remember anything so they struggle and you end up teaching yourself. I've had several classes where professors run out of lecture time in the class before the exam and make us read material on our own and say it will still be on the exam. In addition, professors will spend the entire class time doing a bunch of case studies or rambling without actually teaching the material. Oh man, I could go on and on.....

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Treat medsurg as if you are preparing for the NCLEX.

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