Help... Med Surg

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Nov 18, 2008

part of studying med/surg is learning about many different diseases. that includes learning the pathophysiology, signs/symptoms, usual tests ordered, and medical treatment for a medical disease or condition. this includes knowing about any medical procedures that will need to be performed on the patient, their expected consequences during the healing phase, and potential complications. surgery is a treatment for a disease or condition.

click on the link at the bottom of this post, the critical thinking flow sheet for nursing students, and print it out. use this to help you learn all the elements you need to know about each medical disease/condition you will be studying in your course. to determine priority of treatments and interventions consider the sequence of the appearance of symptoms and/or maslow's hierarchy of needs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs)

soon2bRN516 · Nov 20, 2008

well unfortunately there is no easy way to get through med surg. you have to study like you never have before! when i was in my first semester of med surg i totally was awoken in a bad way. i had gone from a 4.0 student that had rarely had to study in my life, to a big fat f on my first test. :cry: well unfortunately it took a long time for me to start understanding what they were asking, and i still have trouble with what they want. i had to change the way i had to study, i had to not only learn the material i had to understand and apply the material. it is not easy, but you will have someones life in your hand one day so it shouldn't be easy......some people do wonderful and pick up on the critical thinking skills right away, others like me have to work even harder to pick up a minute portion of it. so my advice to you is to sit down with your material as soon as you go home from class and review your notes. focus on one thing at a time if at all possible, and study study study....one of my instructors once mention that she got a chalk board and acted like she was teaching a class with the material so she would understand it better.

so basically i am saying that you are going to have to put major amounts of study time in, and when you don't understand something you need to address it immediately rather than when its too late....i wish you luck........ :nurse: