overwhemled with Medsurg 3rd semester

[Sidnetra23]

Hello everyone, So I am in the ADN nursing program at elcentro/northlake and we are one week in the semester and had our first lecture. It wasnt really a lecture at all she just kind of blabbered a wee bit lol. But I am so overwhelmed with all the reading and everthing. And Phamacology just makes me want to cry thinking about it. So far I have formulated a plan to tackle all the work. By reading as much of the big med surg book as possible (Lewis) which will be a challange because reading is so boring to me.And also using my NCLEX reveiw book along with ati. I also do as many qiestions about the section we are learning about in between studying. I hope this will be effective because I have already heard about how hard this class is. Any other suggestions on ways I can excel in this class :) or any other nurses that graduated from el centro/northlake have any tips . Anything will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

does not matter where we went to school. We all had the same issues as a student. My suggestion is to form a small study group, make rules as to what can be discussed (no gossip, boyfriend talk, etc) and talk out the study material. Creating flashcards might help too. It helped me to have someone as a study partner. If I could not explain content to that person then I did not know it. Frequently the other person remembered something I forgot and HEARING it helped me remember. Good luck

[Sidnetra23]

Hello and thanks for your response! I already know that it dosent matter what school you went to because in reality med surg is med surg no matter what nursing school you go to. I was just wondering is there any thing else that I could do to be successful with learing all of the material. I am so nervous. I think that getting a study buddy is a really great idea and I will for sure be getting some flash cards. Thanks for your musch needed input!

[Nolli]

Time management is the real kicker with that class combo; I know because I'm on the tail end of what you're starting. Don't try to take on the material in 3 chapter chunks unless they are related and even if they are it's very hard to do it that way. Break it up into smaller study sessions to avoid being overwhelmed later and try to stick to the most efficient method that works for you(flashcards work for some people, but not for others etc).

Getting a study group together is a great idea. I also like to do what I call bedtime stories for nursing students. I do some reading from the text or note cards or come up with a mnemonic and go over it before going to bed and then get up the next day and quickly review it. It works pretty well.

[nursingstudent_tutor]

I am not sure how your instructors lecture, but I am going to tell you what helped me study. First off I bought a recorder and recorded the class. I want to note I am not trying to endorse a certain product, but this is what I used. I bought a sony digital recorder. The reason I am giving the name is because you can plug it into your computer (via the USB drive) and transfer the mp3 file to your Itunes account or computer. So as I typed my notes in word, I was listening to my lecture via (intunes).

My instructors actually did lecture over the content. Often times, many of them would go so fast it was hard to catch up. Once I started recording the lectures I saw a HUGE diffrence in my understanding of the material and I learned how to focus on key information. For example if the teacher said, you should know this (I would highlight it in red on a word doc). If my instructor said that some of the information was going to be on the test.

Another great reccomendation I saw that does work is flash cards. I created my own flash cards. Since I was writing it myself, it helped me learn it more than buying cards.

Hope that helps