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Discussion

Medsurg final with no direction

Hi all! This is my first post and I'm pretty desperate.

I am a 3rd semester nursing student and my medsurg final is on monday (its saturday now) and I am freaking out because I have no clue what to study.

A little background:

Our instructor quit in the middle of second semester and thats never happened at my school so we got tossed around quite a bit. There were about four other instructors that quit at the end of our second semester so For third semester we got a brand new instructor...meaning she has NEVER taught before. She was a nurse in a wound clinic for 5 years before deciding to teach and is very honest about not knowing much of anything about maternal or medsurg.

The problem is: she doesn't "lecture". She assigns group projects where each group draws and colors ONE topic from our lesson. Therefore, I have no notes to go back on..just pictures of the color pages we did.

We were told to send her 4 questions each on every lesson. That gave a total of 148 nclex questions. We had a "final review" and what it consisted of was the 148 nclex questions and we were told that TEN of them would be on the test...so basically, "memorize them all and hopefully you will remember the ten I add to the test". Nothing else was gone over.

As most of you know, medsurg covers a LOT of topics. I am freaking out and at a loss as to what to study. The final consists of 100 questions and with my current grade I can miss 35 and still pass the class. That may seem like a cake walk but when there are 30000 different topics that COULD be on the test where do I start?

I made nclex cards during every lesson and Ive been studying those but there are about 2000 total! I have about 20 different tabs open right now with different nclex questions on them and its all just so overwhelming because there is no way i can get through all that in time!

Any advice is greatly appreciated on how or what to really study for. I know I have to brush up on ABGs and Rhythm strips (which i dont get AT ALL) but other than that Im lost.

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    • Featured Replies

    Is this the first exam of hers that you've taken? The final? What about a midterm? Has any other cohort of students ever taken an exam that she wrote?

    If this is her first rodeo (exam construction-wise) there is absolutely no way to know nothin'.

    But... do you have a course syllabus? What are the OBJECTIVES for the course, and for each lesson? The syllabus is the contract you have with the school and instructor. If, for example, there is NO objective about the clotting cascade and antiplatelets/thrombotics/anti-coagulants... don't study that. If you see a lot of objectives about respiratory conditions... hit those hard.

    Sounds like you won't be the only one going through this with no heads up. Most schools will toss bad items. So trust them to do their best. Trust me... they're not out to make you fail.

    Good luck.

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    • Author

    We are her first class ever. Her first day of orientation was the day before we started class this semester. She has written one other exam which we all did pretty poorly on because she absolutely refuses to lecture stating that its "boring". Anyway, she likes to add things to the syllabus so im not real sure what else will be added. On a positive side note: we got an email tonight with 13 drugs on it and those are supposed to be the only drugs on the final so Im pretty excited about that! My first and second semester I had a test average of 90 before taking the finals and now I only have an 83 so Im not processing that very well! lol.

    The layout for lesson one looks like this:

    Metabolism

    All physical and chemical changes that take place to sustain life and conditions that contribute to imbalances.

    Acid/Base

    Regulation of acidity and alkalinity in body fluids and conditions that contribute to imbalances.

    Learning Competencies:

    1. Incorporate evidence based practice to develop a holistic plan of care for medical surgical patients with problems of metabolism.

    a. Diabetes: Type 1 and 2 (DKA, HHNS)

    b. Liver Diseases (Hepatitis, Cirrhosis)

    c. Osteoporosis

    d. Thyroid Diseases

    e. Adrenal Diseases (Cushing's, Addison's)

    2. Incorporate evidence based practice to develop a holistic plan of care for the medical surgical patients with acid-base imbalances.

    a. Respiratory acidosis/alkalosis

    b. Metabolic acidosis/alkalosis

    3. Evaluate the use of pharmacological interventions for persons experiencing metabolic and acid-base imbalances.

    4. Discuss the nutritional needs of patients with metabolic disorders.

    I will def take your advice and go through and hit the outlined topics hard. its 3am and ive been hard at it since 10am and will continue tomorrow! thank you.

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    LISTEN UP!!! You must get 7-8 hour of sleep prior to the exam. Good evidence in the education literature that getting sleep is worth on average 10 extra points.

    After the exam (don't worry about this now) go to your University Handbook, and your Nursing School handbook. Find what they say about the course syllabus and the published learning objectives for each week's class and the "terminal" objectives of the course.

    Your syllabus is your contract with the instructor and the school. An instructor can obviously put more emphasis on Objective 12 than say objective 4. There is wiggle room. But you do NOT announce to students that the published objectives for any class/course are changed.

    Certainly not on the day of the class.

    Do your best. Good luck. Get some rest.

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    May 10 by iamoph

    my medsurg final is on monday (its saturday now) and I am freaking out because I have no clue what to study.

    By your third semester, you should be starting to realize that...

    If you don't know it pretty well by Saturday, you're probably not going to know it a whole lot better by Monday.

    Review the chapter summaries and get plenty of rest... basically, either you're ready or you're not.

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    • Author
    ♪♫ in my ♥, we had our last medsurg test on monday, or last maternal test on friday and then our medsurg final is on monday and our maternal final on Wed. I have actually been doing what Episteme suggested and going through my syllabus and sticking to those topics where as before I was just trying to read anything and everything I could about medsurg and I actually do feel a bit better about monday! Thank you guys for your advice!
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    How was the test?

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    • Author

    Sorry so late in responding...I am now a 4th semester nursing student!! :D

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