How do you study for pathophysiology?

MrPhasma · Feb 9, 2018

I start nursing school in the fall but I am taking a pathophysiology class at my community college this semester. There are two online resources I use all the time that you might find helpful. They are both YouTube channels.

One is Osmosis Osmosis

- YouTube -- they go into a good amount of detail and the videos are relatively short.

However, my favorite resource is Nursing Student Quizzes & Sample Tests | Free Quizzes for Nurses -- RegisteredNurseRN does an amazing job going over all of pathophysiology, diagnosis, signs and symptoms, and treatment of each disease, but that's not the best part. She also has practice quizzes that go along with the diseases so you can actually APPLY the information in a NCLEX style format. Highly recommend her.

I also like to record the lectures on voice memos and listen to them one more time when I'm in my car. This seems to help with understanding things you might have missed the first time around. Good Luck!

thehyruler · Feb 11, 2018

I'm a huge fan of Khan Academy because they have videos of pathophysiology and disease processes as well as practice questions for both.

ItsThatJenGirl, CNA · Feb 11, 2018

Hi,
im in my first semester of nursing school and I am doing great in all of my classes. I am taking fundamentals, concepts, health assessment, and pathophysiology. I just took my first patho exam and scored a 76, which in my program is barely passing. 75 and above is passing. It's like a hit in the face because I studied very hard for this test and did not do as well as I hoped. Can anyone give me any study tips for this class? I would greatly appreciate. Thank you

We're in the same program. That test was really hard and VERY broad, thus hard to study for. Did you go to the SI sessions? I went to the one the Monday before the test, that helped me quite a bit. Try not to feel discouraged. Most people I've spoken to had difficulties, too.

RN1.618, BSN, RN · Feb 11, 2018

Pathophysiology made incredibly easy by Lippincott,Williams & Wilkins is by far my fav book! You can buy new or a used older copy(the latter is my recommendation, pathophysiology doesn't change from edition to edition) on Amazon fairly inexpensive. It very simply explains the pathophysiology and important factors of most diseases/disorders. It was written by nurses, so the perspective they have with the explanations is relevant to your future profession as an RN! Best of luck!

ananana123 · Feb 11, 2018

We're in the same program. That test was really hard and VERY broad, thus hard to study for. Did you go to the SI sessions? I went to the one the Monday before the test, that helped me quite a bit. Try not to feel discouraged. Most people I've spoken to had difficulties, too.

It was really hard! But I saw that you did really well! How did you personally study for it? I did go to the SI sessions and I studied the underlined objectives but not enough of the system disorders I think.

ItsThatJenGirl, CNA · Feb 11, 2018

It was really hard! But I saw that you did really well! How did you personally study for it? I did go to the SI sessions and I studied the underlined objectives but not enough of the system disorders I think.

I went the the looonnnggg review session the Monday before the test, then I used all the worksheets from the rest of the SI sessions to study. I quickly reviewed the diseases, but didn't spend a ton of time on them. I feel like there was just way too much information to cover. It does look like she dropped some questions, did your grade go up? Mine went from an 84 to a 90. If you need help studying for the next one, reach out to me. I'll do my best to help.

ananana123 · Feb 11, 2018

That's really good! Yeah mine went from 76 to 82 which was about the class average so not too bad I guess. And thank you Jen!

ItsThatJenGirl, CNA · Feb 11, 2018

That's really good! Yeah mine went from 76 to 82 which was about the class average so not too bad I guess. And thank you Jen!

That's a great score! You should feel really good!