OB/Peds studying ahead

springchick1, ADN, RN · May 12, 2013

Great questions!! I start OB/Peds in 12 days:)

RLtinker, LPN · May 13, 2013

Peds is a lot like med surge except the focus is on children. Some places to start are the major theorist, Freud, Piaget and Erikson. Typical milestones and age appropriate behavior, vaccine schedules, dental health, post-op care of tonsillectomies, ear infections, the respiratory infections, common child viral infections, FTT, SIDS, clef pallets and DM1 are a few of the more major disorders/issues. However, you learn disorders for all the body systems.

In OB, mother and baby assessments are a huge deal, you need to know the normal and abnormal findings particularly skin, reflex (Babinski for an example), temperature, heart rate, pain, breathing, and fontanelles. Other stuff to know include, nutrition, medications, Nagele's rule, aminocentesis, FHR accelerations/decelerations, TPAL/GPA score, and apgar score, as a start. There are a few disorders you need to know such as gestational diabetes, Rh incompatibility, preterm labor, pre-eclampsia, eclampsia/HELLP, abrutio placentae, placenta previa, ectopic pregnancy, and postpartum hemorrhage for an example.

Probably the biggest thing in OB and in peds is patient teaching, but this is stuff you will pick along the way. This is not comperhesive but it hits some of the major points.

springchick1, ADN, RN · May 14, 2013

Peds is a lot like med surge except the focus is on children. Some places to start are the major theorist, Freud, Piaget and Erikson. Typical milestones and age appropriate behavior, vaccine schedules, dental health, post-op care of tonsillectomies, ear infections, the respiratory infections, common child viral infections, FTT, SIDS, clef pallets and DM1 are a few of the more major disorders/issues. However, you learn disorders for all the body systems.
In OB, mother and baby assessments are a huge deal, you need to know the normal and abnormal findings particularly skin, reflex (Babinski for an example), temperature, heart rate, pain, breathing, and fontanelles. Other stuff to know include, nutrition, medications, Nagele's rule, aminocentesis, FHR accelerations/decelerations, TPAL/GPA score, and apgar score, as a start. There are a few disorders you need to know such as gestational diabetes, Rh incompatibility, preterm labor, pre-eclampsia, eclampsia/HELLP, abrutio placentae, placenta previa, ectopic pregnancy, and postpartum hemorrhage for an example.
Probably the biggest thing in OB and in peds is patient teaching, but this is stuff you will pick along the way. This is not comperhesive but it hits some of the major points.

That's great! Thanks for the info!!

Shelby, BSN, RN · May 14, 2013

RLtinker did a great job! If you are short on time, or just don't know where to begin, I'd say start with the basic normals. It really is true that you don't know what is abnormal if you don't know your normals. So know the heart rates, BPs, temps, etc then milestones in development. Know your theorists (esp. Erikson). After that then I would learn the vaccine/immunization schedule and any abnormal reactions and contraindications involved. If you've had assessment already then read about how to generally assess a baby/child/pregnant woman. This should be covered in greater detail in your class, but at my school we learned "a little" about it in general health assessment class which came before our OB/Peds.