Need Some Reassurance Here.....

[RNBearColumbus, BSN]

OK, long story short, I've been an LPN for nearly 9 years. I've been chipping away at the Excelsior exams since 2010. I only have 3 exams, the FCCA and CPNE left. I've gotten good scores on the exams I've taken so far. BUT:

The more I think about having to take the CPNE, and the more I read on here and other places about it, the more discouraged I get. I graduated at the top of my LPN class, have been working in long term care ever since, and am told that I'm good at what I do. But I worry about having to "unlearn" the way I'm used to doing things, and learning to do them the way Excelsior wants them done during CPNE. I know there is hard work involved, I'm not expecting them to hand me a "pass".

I guess I just need to hear from some others that have done it that it's doable. Am I being too much of a "worry Wart" here?

[Nalon1 RN/EMT-P, BSN, RN]

The fact that your worried is good. The CPNE is not an easy assessment, but it is doable on the first try if you study and practice, practice, practice, then practice some more.

Also, it is not so much "unlearning" how you do it, but adapting what you have been doing for years to the way they want it done. This is where the practice comes in.

I personally used only the CPNE study guide from Excelsior and Robscpne.com study material/videos. I did it daily for almost 4 months, started with 1 skill a day and got down to doing each skill station almost daily. Same for the mnemonics, read them several times a day, wrote them down and filled them out.

I did not use Excelsiors care plan help, but should have, I struggled with my care plans (but did get them the first time each time). Robs site does have care plan help that was very useful, but could have used more practice with someone evaluating them.

[ScudderRN31]

Do you Have to use the mnemonics?

LPN who can't wait to be a RN!

[John SPN]

I would highly recommend mnemonics. I relied heavily on them during my CPNE weekend to ensure that I did not miss anything during my assessment and, more importantly, charting.

[Nalon1 RN/EMT-P, BSN, RN]

Do you Have to use the mnemonics?

No, but they made it much easier to remember everything. I think every CPNE study course teaches them.

Just an example from RobsCPNE (posted on his website, so I am not giving anything away that he has not already):

For skin assessment you have to check temperature, integrity, moisture, edema and color. How to remember this when your stressed our and can't even remember your name, TIME-C (he says to think of an arm with a watch on it and a bunch of red bumps). I remembered this without thinking about it from 9 months ago. I modified a few of them to help me (like skin is actually TIME-Color on his site, but TIME-C is what I remember)

While this one is a pretty simple one, there are several that are harder and are absolutes to do. Mnemonics help with that. Their are several our there, so if Robs does not work, you can try others (but decide early so you can get it down)