Med-Surg & Pharm

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · Mar 18, 2014

I am curious....Is there a reason you don't take notes? I see in your posts that you are struggling. Maybe taking notes might help. Flash card for pharmacy and writing them down is usually best...kind of like vocab. It is memorization.

I always noticed the the instructors/professors lectures were important for they highlighted what was important. So I found notes very helpful. I also learn better after writing it down.

Sassy-RN · Mar 18, 2014

Down load APPs such as Davis and Saunders etc...and take practices question! The apps are set up so you can focus on specific areas, cardiology, oncology etc.... Do Your practices quizzes and read the reasoning etc.... I know many who have done this and it helped. It's good practice for boards too... Good luck.

Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN · Mar 18, 2014

How is it working for you? Are you having trouble? I would have been dead in the water without notes!! :dead: I took lecture notes--outline form works best for me--and then recopied them into a separate notebook at home. That way if I thought of a better way to organize them as I went in class I could fix it, and also make them neater. It also helped me review the info as I wrote it down again. Then when I studied, I would read them and repeat them out loud to myself. The combo of repeated reading and hearing got me through w/ flying colors.

2016New · May 8, 2014

Notes are so time consuming! Especially when i have in mind the million other things i have to do for school but i do take notes during class & as i read/highlight the book.

I have plenty of apps! But unfortunately, the very good apps costs money that i do not have...

Even with the note taking, the repetition, the practice questions... I still end up barely passing my exams & i do not know why.

Thanks for the advice!

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · May 9, 2014

Notes are so time consuming! Especially when i have in mind the million other things i have to do for school but i do take notes during class & as i read/highlight the book.
I have plenty of apps! But unfortunately, the very good apps costs money that i do not have...
Even with the note taking, the repetition, the practice questions... I still end up barely passing my exams & i do not know why.
Thanks for the advice!

YOu might find this helpful......Pharmacology Flashcards

EternalFeather · May 10, 2014

for medsurg, read the text thats required for your class, it'll also help with pharmacology cause in medsurg books, they dont go in details about the drugs, but you will know the gists and the important things to note about the meds they mention

as for pharm, it really depends on what your prof wants you to learn about it cause a med can have 10 pages of details that you have to memorize. so, just do flash cards, and write them over and over to help you memorize.

thats how i studied for both classes.

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · May 10, 2014

I'm curious as to how your lectures go.

For med-surg, do they focus on a particular pathology? For us, we looked at specific things like UTIs, obesity, BPH, ovarian cancer, STIs, CHF and the like. If that's the case, then don't worry too much about all the other things in the chapters but focus on nursing management and the common S&S for these problems. I found the nursing management aspects were extremely important and these types of questions are going to be most similar to NCLEX-type questions.

For pharmacology, are you doing it by category, system or just looking at common drugs? Again, nursing management is the most important aspect. If you can round up all your drugs into certain categories and get a handle on how these categories have similar MofAs, then this will help you start making connections to how you need to anticipate how your patient is going to handle the drug(s) they are given and what to do if adverse effects occur. Patient teaching is also important so know the most significant things you can that are good to know types of things for a drug class/category (there is a free app for iPhone that is the NCSBN's review and it's a flash card-style type of app where you can look at categories and they have "good to know," "nice to know," or "really important to know" type of information breakdowns for drug categories - this helped me a lot with pt teaching and remembering the adverse effects of certain drugs).

Finally, are you able to make the connections between pharmacology and med-surg? For example, are you learning about CHF and looking at the different kinds of drugs that are used to manage them? We are taught intensively about digoxin and all the nursing management that goes along with it (i.e. why it helps, what happens with potassium, what is the potassium level's relationship to dig toxicity, etc. etc.). These connections reiterated and reinforced that information for me in our first med-surg qtr and it helped immensely.

If none of the above apply, however, just try to reason out what your basic nursing considerations are by body system for med-surg and pharmacology. That is way you can start compartmentalizing and reinforcing information that will continue to build on itself and things will start to hopefully fall into place.

2016New · May 28, 2014

hahahah shouldn't have asked that question!

we've had out MedSurg professor for 3 classes (Patho, MedSurg 1, now MedSurg 2)

lets just say….she didn't make a good impression on us during Patho.

For example:

our lecture last week was on Hematological and Immunological disorders.

she skimmed through all 10 chapters having to do with those topics.

never went into detail of specific disorders within the topics such as whats the difference between osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis? or whats hemophilia A and B? difference?

nothing.

general information

nothing specific.

then come her exams, which are beyond specific.

my question is:

why lecture on things in such a general way and then test us on the specifics?

yes we do have to study at home but reinforcement in the class is needed.

and we don't get any.

Nolli · May 28, 2014

Oh you have one of those professors who like to pull the specific question from page 405 in your textbook. I had one of those for pharm. The only way I passed her class was because her notes/lectures followed the book and the lovely flashcards that Esme posted. So I read the book, did the chapter reviews, and used flashcards. I learn best by reading or doing though so you may need to find something that sticks with you. Not going to lie this is one of those work your butt off scenarios. If you are truly worried go to the professor, ours actually had study sessions for those who were under a certain grade to get them to passing.

2016New · May 28, 2014

we've asked her questions before, she tells us to refer back to the book or clearly says "oh, i don't know. ill have to look it up"

Nolli · May 28, 2014

we've asked her questions before, she tells us to refer back to the book or clearly says "oh, i don't know. ill have to look it up"

That's a real shame. I appreciate the benefits of being able to help one's self as well, but sometimes people need a helping hand. Does your school offer tutoring by students farther along in the program? Ours did and you were paired with someone who dealt with the same content and usually the same professor.