Just Passed CCRN! Info for Others

Published Apr 13, 2016

4 Posts

I am happy to say I just passed my CCRN exam yesterday. I wanted to post a bit about it for folks looking to take it soon.

My background is ER/MICU with previous experience as a paramedic. I work in a small community hospital which does not do invasive cardiology, neurology, or trauma services. I do take care of some of these types of patients in the ER setting, but only for a short time until we can transfer them. Most of our MICU patients are DKA, sepsis, ARDS, etc.

My biggest challenge was probably the same for nurse who work in sub-specialty ICU's like cardiothoracic or trauma. There are exam questions about disease processes, procedures, and monitoring equipment that you simply don't see unless you float around in several ICU settings or have a strong MICU background at a large hospital. There is also very heavy physiology component to the test. No one taking this exam is a new grad, so seasoned nurses may struggle to revisit that stuff, unless you are nursing faculty that teaches those topics.

I used the ACCN Essentials of Critical Care Nursing textbook over a few months to beef up my base knowledge. I found it was a lot of information and I needed something more compact to review in the last few weeks. I did Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio's online review, which involved me listening to her lectures and taking practice tests. I listed to cardiac and respiratory a couple of times since they made up the biggest exam portion. The review course came with Baron's CCRN exam book, so I read the review sections for each topic and took the tests.

Two days before the exam I used Adult CCRN Certification Review: Think in Questions Learn in Rationale for the topics I did the worst in on the practice exams.

My actual exam scores were above 90% in all topics except for the Synergy Model for Patient Care section. Now having taken the test, here is my 20-20 hindsight:

1. I would have spent a lot less time with the actual textbook. I would have used it for respiratory and cardiac, but that is all.

2. More time studying the Synergy content. It made up a lot of the test. If you are not a strong patho person, you could benefit by getting more of these questions in the bag. The information is there, I just didn't review it much.

3. I would have spent less time studying EKGs and rhythm strips, the content was simply not there.

4. I would have used the Adult CCRN Certification Review: Think in Questions Learn in Rationale a lot more and a lot sooner.

5. Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio's review was absolutely invaluable, but costs $350. Wish I could went in the with some colleagues and shared the videos, but I would not do without it. It won't make you pass the exam if you don't have the general knowledge base, but it helps you pick out the little obscure things you may have skimmed over.

6. Less time studying many types of hemodynamic values and all the factors that change them, more on just CO, CVP, and PAOP.

7. I am glad for all the practice questions, both from the online review and Baron's. Some of the questions on the test were word for word from the book.

A few other points: Review restrictive cardiomyopathy, The reviews focus on hypertropic and dilated, neither were on the exam. Be sure you know the AV conduction abnormalities for each type of MI. Be able to identify the artery and area of the heart based on what leads show ST changes. Know what poor R wave progression is and what it means physiologically. Know SIADH, DI, and DKA inside out and upside down. Understand your trigger points for patients requiring intubation, such as the PC02 levels. Review the pulmonary function testing associated with asthma and what the values mean. Know how an IABP functions (very basically) and what it does (increased cardiac output, increased coronary blood flow, reduced afterload). Know when beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, and positive inotropes are contraindicated. You will be able to eliminate several answer choices for many cardiac questions just knowing this.

Hope this helps anyone else working on test prep now. I will be frank, it was harder than CEN, NCLEX, and Paramedic exams. You cannot wing it, but you can pass it with a well structured study plan.