How to pass Medical Surgical Nursing....

classicdame, MSN, EdD · Jan 8, 2014

pay attention to your syllabus as it will help guide your study time. If there are any computer lab apps for med/surg questions, make use of those. Find a study partner who is as serious about studying as you are, or find a study guide so you can quiz yourself. Ask questions. Most instructors have office time so you can arrange a consult. Go in with direct questions, not a generic "I don't understand". Create questions about conditions, meds, etc when you go to clinical so you can ask the nurses. For instance, if your patient is getting a procedure done, ask what will happen during the procedure, can you observe, what are they looking to discover, what labs are related to this, what meds, ----- MD's like to answer questions too, if they are reasonable. I asked an MD once why he was so concerned about the patient's potassium level. Boy, did I get an earful and it has stayed with me!

Justice1984 · Jan 8, 2014

Thank you very much for the time you took you reply. Very informative! What supplementary books if any do you recommend?

Justice1984 · Jan 8, 2014

classicdame Thank you for the time you took to reply much appreciated! What supplementary books if any do your recommend?

Lev, MSN, RN, NP · Jan 13, 2014

Read the book! If your professor mentions a topic, read up on in the book.

VAgirl247 · Jan 17, 2014

I got just about every supplemental book for med-surg. Amazon will list a bunch. I think for reviewing material wise I will use Med-surg made incredibly easy. For nclex questions I'll use Review and Rationales by Hogan and the Success series by Davis.

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Jan 17, 2014

It's not "surge." That's a sudden influx, as in, "storm surge" or "The crowd surged forward." You are using an abbreviation that's short for "medical/surgical," and the abbreviation is "M/S" or "med/surg." :) You're welcome.

In answer to your question, med/surg is the repository for just about everything to do with illness or surgical treatment. Therefore what you learn there will carry over to just about any area of nursing you'll ever see. I used to tell my students that no matter where you work, your patients will have hearts and lungs, so you'd better learn the hows and whys of cardiovascular and pulmonary really well. If they don't have hearts and/or lungs, they're dead and we don't have to worry about what to do with them anymore. :) In most care situations, people have more than one thing wrong with them. Diabetics get into car wrecks, people with renal insufficiency have knee surgery, smokers get food poisoning, people with seizure disorders can have anemia ...

Be really solid in your physiology and pathophysiology; keep those references where you can reach them, and refer to them often. See, in nursing school, it's assumed that you will retain everything you learned before and be able to apply it as you go forward. There's nothing comparable to your English major buddy's pass-the-final, sell-the-book, put-it-out-of-your-mind. Your faculty will not remind you that when you study cardiac nursing you had better refresh on CV physiology-- you have to do that on your own volition. It will be like this for the rest of your working life. I still buy books and refer to them often.

Justice1984 · Jan 21, 2014

GrnTea.......Thanks for your time, response and correction!

StacyAtheNurse, BSN, MSN, APRN, NP · Jan 21, 2014

I wish someone would have told me what I'm about to tell you when I was in Med/Surg.

If you can confidently answer the objectives on the powerpoints for that exam, or the objectives on the chapters that correspond to that exam you cannot fail.

Once I figured that out, I got only 95-100% on my exams.

Good luck

StacyAtheNurse, BSN, MSN, APRN, NP · Jan 21, 2014

oh and Mosby is a good book to use, Saunders and Lippincott are geared more toward Critical Care Nursing, but are very helpful anyhow if you wanted to use them.

___Blank___ Made easy is also useful for the practice questions. The thing is you have to get started 2 weeks before. If you have 2 chapters on an exam, a full week before the exam you should know one of those chapters like the back of your hand and then you can spend the next week doing the next chapter. Then take the weekend or last 2-3 days before the exam to do questions and rationales

A&Ox6, MSN, RN · Jan 21, 2014

I have a few points:

Do not compare grades with students from other schools. Whereas it may be commonplace for students at one school to score upward of 95, there are many schools where you will be glad for your C. For example, the valedictorian in my cohort had actually failed a couple of exams.

Following this logic, be very wary of advice from students at other schools. For example, in my school, power points often had nothing to do with the material being tested on. In fact many professors would not allow us to fight a test question based on them. Try to find students who recently attended your program to get this advice.

Also, take all course specific advice with a grain of salt. If you're getting the advice from classmates who are repeating the class, ask yourself if they're the best ones to give you advice. Also, because curricula, exams, and professors change, this advice may not apply.

In terms of med/surg courses in particular, don't study the material. Learn it. This is material you need to know. Like grntea said, all patients have heart and lungs. Even if you work in a specialty, the human body is dynamic. If you can understand the interconnectedness of the systems, you will be better equipped to treat and anticipate issues.

Last, there is a lot of hype about med/surg, but this is the stuff you will use everyday. Your clinicals will be most representative if your career. Even if you hate med/surg, make sure to network at clinicals and make a great impression!