MedSurge & OB advice?

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Hello, I'm currently a second bachelor's student at Towson Nursing. I will start Med Surge and OB this Fall08 (J2) and I'm very excited. It's silly to say, but I'm in love with the show Grey's Anatomy and seeing all those weird amazing cases. I'm so looking forward to Med Surge. Can anyone let me in on what Med Surge and OB is like and any study tips or advice? I finished J1 with As and Bs and worked my butte off to get those grades.

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Specializes in General adult inpatient psychiatry.

Hey, I'm at Towson but I'm a semester ahead of you (I'll be an S1 in the fall). I have tons of notes from Med-Surg if you want to ever take a look, because it's a crazy hard class and you might have some people from my class who didn't make it the first time around. Definitely buy an NCLEX review book or two and buy the study guide for the Med-Surg text. I didn't, but towards the end of the semester I borrowed one from someone who had it and I saw where test questions were coming from. Get together with a study group if you can and ask Ms. McCarron if you can audio record the lectures so you can either listen back and take notes again or play them in your car on your commute to Towson every day. I had a really good clinical experience with Ms. Dahlem...she's awesome! Not everyone did have such a good experience, so check around to see if any of the S1's can tell you info about your clinical instructor when you find out who she is.

I breezed through OB because Ms. Bye tells you alot of what's going to be on the test and I just found it overall much easier than Med-Surg. I didn't really read the text much except to skim before tests, but the CD for the textbook had practice questions that were very beneficial and she used a bunch of them on the final.

The ERIs for both are pretty ridiculous and like the instructors say, don't worry about them because you can re-take as many times as you need to. I failed the Med-Surg one by 7 points I think because they just hadn't covered some of the stuff in lecture yet but I didn't study anymore and just took the final, and re-took the ERI the last week of school and passed. The OB ERI is a little nuts, but I passed on the first try and there's also study material on the ERI website for all the ERIs.

I wish you the best of luck!

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Specializes in General adult inpatient psychiatry.

Oh by the way, Med-Surg is ridiculously hard. I know the class averages stayed in the lower 70s range but it can be done. I ended up passing with a solid B even though I got a 74 on the first exam. They give you a case study to do, which is kinda like the big care plan you did in Fundamentals/NURS 351 as a J1. If you work hard on it, it can be a boost to your grade and it's worth 20% of your final grade. You'll have a total of 4 tests and the case study, and each is worth 20% of your grade, including the final exam (which is not cumulative, by the way).

OB grading is a little different. Ms. Bye likes to give these really hard quizzes via Blackboard about fetal monitoring and various other topics and each quiz is worth about 5% of your grade. She also only gives 3 tests including the final exam. You have a "big care plan" to do and a teaching plan, each of which is worth I think either 10 or 15%. Don't buy the EFM book; I never opened it and they just made a new edition, so when I went to sell it back it was worth $2. Get together and do these quizzes with a group because two heads or five are better than one. You'll have an OB pharm drug test sometime within the first month of class but just make flashcards and have them ready when you take the test (it's on Blackboard too).

Don't forget that you have to pass the medication dosage test for both classes. The questions are very similar on each and just work through the practice problems your instructors e-mail you and you should be fine.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

ob links:

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Thank you so much for this valuable information! I definitely needed to know what it's like and you gave me so much information. I just went out and bought a Saunders Q & A NCLEX book today actually and will start studying that this summer. I will definitely go out and get the study guide for medsurge text as well. I dreaded Bye's pharm class but ended up getting a B-. I loved her study guides though. What is the best way to study for MedSurge? Last semester, I mostly studied from the ppt slides for 351. As for clinical, I have Kincaid for Medsurge at St. Joe's and I have yet to find out where my OB clinical is, crossing my fingers it won't be at St. Agnes since it's a quite drive my from Cockeysville apt. Thanks again!:loveya:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Oh by the way, Med-Surg is ridiculously hard. I know the class averages stayed in the lower 70s range but it can be done. I ended up passing with a solid B even though I got a 74 on the first exam. They give you a case study to do, which is kinda like the big care plan you did in Fundamentals/NURS 351 as a J1. If you work hard on it, it can be a boost to your grade and it's worth 20% of your final grade. You'll have a total of 4 tests and the case study, and each is worth 20% of your grade, including the final exam (which is not cumulative, by the way).

OB grading is a little different. Ms. Bye likes to give these really hard quizzes via Blackboard about fetal monitoring and various other topics and each quiz is worth about 5% of your grade. She also only gives 3 tests including the final exam. You have a "big care plan" to do and a teaching plan, each of which is worth I think either 10 or 15%. Don't buy the EFM book; I never opened it and they just made a new edition, so when I went to sell it back it was worth $2. Get together and do these quizzes with a group because two heads or five are better than one. You'll have an OB pharm drug test sometime within the first month of class but just make flashcards and have them ready when you take the test (it's on Blackboard too).

Don't forget that you have to pass the medication dosage test for both classes. The questions are very similar on each and just work through the practice problems your instructors e-mail you and you should be fine.

Re: MedSurge & OB advice?

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Thank you so much for this valuable information! I definitely needed to know what it's like and you gave me so much information. I just went out and bought a Saunders Q & A NCLEX book today actually and will start studying that this summer. I will definitely go out and get the study guide for medsurge text as well. I dreaded Bye's pharm class but ended up getting a B-. I loved her study guides though. What is the best way to study for MedSurge? Last semester, I mostly studied from the ppt slides for 351. As for clinical, I have Kincaid for Medsurge at St. Joe's and I have yet to find out where my OB clinical is, crossing my fingers it won't be at St. Agnes since it's a quite drive my from Cockeysville apt. Thanks again!:loveya:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in General adult inpatient psychiatry.
Re: MedSurge & OB advice?

permalink

Thank you so much for this valuable information! I definitely needed to know what it's like and you gave me so much information. I just went out and bought a Saunders Q & A NCLEX book today actually and will start studying that this summer. I will definitely go out and get the study guide for medsurge text as well. I dreaded Bye's pharm class but ended up getting a B-. I loved her study guides though. What is the best way to study for MedSurge? Last semester, I mostly studied from the ppt slides for 351. As for clinical, I have Kincaid for Medsurge at St. Joe's and I have yet to find out where my OB clinical is, crossing my fingers it won't be at St. Agnes since it's a quite drive my from Cockeysville apt. Thanks again!:loveya:

The best way to study for med-surg I think is a combination of working practice questions and reviewing notes. Listen in class because there will be certain things they'll highlight or talk alot about and they're most likely referencing to test material. The instructors did start having study sessions shortly after the class failed the first exam and if they do them again: go to the study sessions! Practice questions and the CD/study guide for the textbook really got me through. The book is quite meaty so I ended up highlighting important information that stuck out so when I was reviewing I didn't have to read every single word to get the main ideas. There are "main concepts" that come in MS Word and audio (mp3) form on the website for the text and those are useful too.

St. Joes is good for Med-surg clinical; I had mine at GBMC. I had OB at St. Agnes and it was really boring (there was always a low census on the unit when we were there) but my instructor (who is sadly not teaching at Towson anymore) made sure we each saw a lady partsl and c-section birth.

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