Lab mnemonics

I've been viewing a lot of posts of people's experiences with the CPNE...the do's & don'ts if you will. One question I need to ask...before performing any critical element, is one supposed to say aloud what he/she is going to do? Another thing...what is one to carry into the pt's room? A stethoscope? A penlight? Pens? Papers? Carpenito?

I have read at least one account that a person verbalized their actions and they felt that by doing this it went a long way to helping them pass. Examiner seemed impressed. I think it is a good idea because I have also read, as an example, that someone did a step but failed because the examiner was not "aware" of it, e.g. they bent down and checked the ID band. Had they verbalized checking the ID band, the examiner would not have missed it. Makes sense to me.

I verbalized everything (within reason, of course ... nothing like, "Wow, these 90-year-old lungs sure aren't moving much air."). I warned the patients that I was going to talk through the steps of the assessment and management so that my "clinical instructor" would know that I knew what I was doing, and that these were the same assessments/management performed silently by the patient's primary nurse. One of my PCS patients actually remarked that it was interesting for him to know what I was checking during the peripheral vascular assessment. :)

I also verbalized everything in the labs. This is just something I learned to do during testing in paramedic school; you know the saying, "If you didn't document it, you didn't do it"? We had something similar in paramedic school, pertaining to testing: "If you didn't say it, you didn't do it." Verbalizing kept me in my comfort zone during my CPNE.