Any advice, on taking pathophysiology. We are using the book. By lachel story.

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Any advice, on taking pathophysiology. We are using the book. By lachel story. Also any adice on the health assement class, starting nursing in the fall, pretty nervous ;)

Any advice on how to approach patho, how are the test questions set up, is it definitions or applied? Best study tricks? .

Also is health assessment difficult? Any tips for that?

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

I would assume that questions vary from school to school. I do know that most schools consider the sharing of specific test information academic dishonesty and grounds for termination for your program.

For health assessment it is practice practice practice.

It's not giving too much hints to say that any good educational program will test using questions to see if you know definitions, if you can apply what you know to a given situation, and if you know how to think critically.

Check out the Physiology Coloring Book at Amazon-- it will be very, very helpful to you as you go through school. It is not a joke but a very helpful resource that has helped many students.

Physiology and pathophysology are not courses you will take once, pass the exam, and forget. You will be held accountable for all this information all the way through-- and as a nurse. So you'll want to be sure to understand it so well you can explain it to others.

It helps me a lot to write out cause, symptoms, treatment, pathology, complications, and tests for each disorder

Anatomy and Physiology Interactive cd helped me a lot for patho.

Try and learn you physiology real well like inside out. It will save lots of time later. Assessment was just learning about how to assess a patient. It was not so bad. There are videos on it when you are ready.

Specializes in Med Surg, PCU, Travel.

My patho class has been combination of applied and knowing definitions. Our text is Huether and McCance, Understanding Patho. Thus far the teaching method did not work for me so I had to do additional work on my own to understand concepts. If your text book has physiology chapters, start on those because they just expect you to remember your A&P stuff and they tend to skim over it really quickly.

Yeah like we suppose to remember A&P from 2-3 years ago :(

Additional items that help me understand concepts are videos from youtube. there is tonnes of nursing lectures on there. I subscribed to A.W videos because I'm very much a visual learner and he draws and explains the patho as he goes. There's many other good ones. Just remember if using other lecturers stuff make sure its inline with what your own professor is teaching.DO NOT challenge your professor with information you got from another professor...you will get on their "bad side" What your professor say is "always right" or just make them think it is.

I also like this guy D.F because his slides are almost identical to what we have in class.Again make sure they are inline with what your professor is saying if you use alternate education. Videos by medical doctors are also good because they get straight to the point at getting the patho down, however they do not include nursing management.

Here's one of A.W's videos.

I jut finished patho I and have started patho II. The first part was difficult for me and I'm not sure if it was because I'm taking the condensed course (6 weeks instead of 14 weeks) or if its because previously we were tested on specific knowledge and not application. My tests were delivered as case studies and scenarios so I found I had a lot less memorizing and a lot more knowledge application, understanding and critical thinking. It makes sense that its delivered this way, it was just a learning curve for me. I had to totally revamp my study style and now instead of knowing that part of the patho of malignant tumors is nutrient trapping, I look at what happens during nutrient trapping and how these effects cause other physiological changes within the body (for example). The biggest part of patho for me was learning how to look behind and ahead to see what the cause and effects were in order to learn the processes.

Hope this helps a little :)

Eta - if you don't know your A&P really well then start brushing up on it now!! It's expected that we had a very good grasp on anatomy in order to understand patho!!

patho was easy as cheese for me. Everything just...clicked. Consider making flow charts that go like this:

etiology>symptoms & signs>pathology>complications>tests>treatment.

I made a ton of these for each disease process and it was so easy.

And I wasn't a very good A&P student at all. I wish all of nursing school was like that, because intro to med surg

Ive done patho at two different schools and did/am doing very well (92%). Tests have been done application based. I would suggest studying everyday for two hours and not cramming last minute. Brush up on your a&p especially with cell structure and purposes. For patho I would say you dont need to worry about greater or lesser tuburcles or insertion points but there is a lot of knowing cellular alterations and if you dont know without looking which cells do what job iy can br confusing. Of course circulatory system needs to be memorized.

For me neuro and endocrine in a&p was always pretty difficuly and it is the same in patho for me... also electrolyte balances...... take each unit as you can. I actually love patho and a&p but I have my trohble areas that require way more effort and concentration. Good luck!

Geez sorry for the typos I am on my phone and I get carried away with the thumbs!

Any advice, on taking pathophysiology. We are using the book. By lachel story. Also any adice on the health assement class, starting nursing in the fall, pretty nervous ;)

Any advice on how to approach patho, how are the test questions set up, is it definitions or applied? Best study tricks? .

Also is health assessment difficult? Any tips for that?

Where are you from?!! Lol what nursing program are you going into???? My patho teacher was lachel story ;)

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