Much needed Advice please

[ace003]

Today I had my midterm for my Comprehensive course. It covered the function of the reproductive system, complications that could occur, assessments, interventions, and evaluations of those complications. The textbook that the reading came from is not a very good one, according to multiple instructors at the school but they continue to use it because they already told everyone to purchase it and made their lesson plans from it. They are in transition to changing to a new textbook and are implementing this change with the upcoming semesters.

Now the exam was difficult....very difficult. I did my best and was able to work through about 70% of the questions. However, there were many questions that included terminology, procedures, interventions to implement, medications, and other things that I cannot remember, that I do not remember reading in the textbook. I even referred to my textbook (which I had brought with me....I know insane because its like 1000 lbs!) as soon as i came out of the exam to see if I missed reading it in the textbook but i still couldn't find it in the textbook.

Example: One question asked, "What sign would indicate to the nurse that cervical cancer has metastasized in a patient? Choices: Amenorrhea, swollen leg, breast tenderness, and another choice i can't remember. I honestly did not know what to choose and guessed amenorrhea because it was closely related to the reproductive system.

I tried looking in the textbook for the answer but it never even mentioned what to look for to assess if/when cervical cancer metastasizes. Of-course many people were outraged at the exam, stating it was unfair. I appreciated the difficulty of the exam but was upset at how unprepared I felt. Multiple people expressed their anger to the instructor regarding the exam and stated that there was content on it that was never covered. Instead of being angry at the instructor I was hard on myself for not doing everything needed to be prepared for the exam. I asked the professor if there were any other resources that should have been used in order to prepare for the midterm. I assume she was already flustered and she thought I was ready to blame her for my possible failure and became very defensive stating that everything on the exam came out of the textbook we were asked to read and that if we were unfamiliar with anything its because we didn't read and didn't take the exam seriously.

Still trying to explain what I meant using the example of the cervical cancer question, she raised her voice and stated, "I'm not discussing the exam!"

I don't expect to be spoon fed information and know that there is a lot of reading that goes along with these courses. However, if what I am asked to read does not include certain things than how am I supposed to know them. Should I automatically use multiple resources when preparing for exams even though professors haven't stated to use anything else? Was the question I brought up earlier something that needed more critical thinking than I thought and was not supposed to be clearly stated in the textbook? I feel as if the instructor may be also using the "new" textbook that the school will be transitioning too but she denies using any other textbook or resource.

Any advice given will be well received and appreciated. Sorry for my long story.

[mrsboots87]

I personally would have looked closely at either the swollen leg or the breast tenderness. Cervical cancer metastasizes to the breast often. Breast tenderness would be a sign to look deeper. for lumps on the breast. But thinking more about it, I think I would ultimately choose the leg swelling because breast tenderness is s sign to look further, but leg swelling could indicate lymph node involvement and those lymph nodes closest to the cervix would affect the leg. I wouldnt have chosen amenorrhea because that is a generic sign of a reproductive cancer that already includes cervical cancer, so it wouldnt necessarily be a sign of metastasis from the cervix.

This question could have been narrowed down by using base knowledge about cancer. It may not have been directly from the reproductive section of the book because even though it included reproductive organs it was more about anatomy and cancer knowledge. Had you had previous lectures on cancer in med/surg where lymphedema is discussed? That is where I get my answer from.

Someone will correct me if my thoughts on this are wrong, but I can say amenorhea would have been crossed out immediately for me. Keep in mind that not all questions will have black and white answers from the text book as you have probably already discovered. Many take applying old concepts to new information.

Maybe wait a day or two for the instructor to calm down and then send her a polite email explaining that you were not trying to contest exam questions, but that you were just looking for her suggested resources to do better next time because you didn't recognize some of the material on the test.

[mrsboots87]

And as a side note, I love womens health, but my womens heath/OB instructor was not the best.Some of the questions on her exam were verbatim from student resources yet the answers were changed the answer because SHE liked it better. Also, she would pull questions from the most vague areas of the book. Overall just terrible. And seeing as I usually get high Bs or As on my exams I find it hard to believe that I did something wrong on her exams only. Also, most of the other A/B students also did terrible on her exams.

What I am saying is that you may have done everything right, but just had a cruddy test making instructor. I still think you should contact her again to ask for more resources or even make an appt to sit down with her and review the exam. Either you did not critically think enough and the questions were higher level or the instructor made a bad test. IF she can't point out how she got the answers she did to a student, then that should show her that maybe she should give some credit back to students.

[mrsboots87]

double commented in error