Panic over Patho!

tyloo · Jan 12, 2014

There is a lot of reading. I read everything at least once. They would give you a test guide. This was just a guide though. Some of the points on the guide you would see on the test and some questions were found that were not on the guide. Of course the guide was really general anyways. I would review what was on the guide. I read the chapter summary also.

I made an auditory recording of the material on the test guide and also the chapter summary key points. I listened to my recordings over and over again. All I can say is you have to put a lot of time in reading and studying. Taking patho, pharm, and health assessment is like having a full time job. There is a lot of material to cover in a short period of time.

You have to be organized. I am a numbers person. I would calculate the number of pages that need to be read for the test. I forget if there was a test every other week or every three weeks?? Anyways I broke down and calculated how many pages had to be read, and did my recordings while reading. I then spent the last week before the test listening to my recordings. I would listen to my recordings while commuting to work in my car and walking my dog. Really these little blocks of time add up!!

masonmoore0824 · Jan 12, 2014

Thank you so much for the information!

When you took it there were no recorded lectures? Also, in the syllabus it says the tests are open book, but the remote proctor rules say your workspace has to be free of any books or papers. How was it done when you took the class?

Annaiya, NP · Jan 12, 2014

I agree, the only way to handle patho is spending tons of time on it. It was the one class where I read almost everything assigned. It was the only way to learn the content. The book is really dense, so it is not quick reading. Don't get behind because you'll never have time to catch up. There's no magic to learning the content. I found it just took a ton of time.

lynn1027 · Jan 12, 2014

Quick question for the USA people: Do USA's courses have lectures associated with them or are you just supposed to read the book? Thanks!

masonmoore0824 · Jan 12, 2014

That's what I want to know, too because if there are no lectures I don't think I can just learn straight from the book!

tyloo · Jan 12, 2014

Pharmacology and Pathophysiology are open book- not health assessment. The best thing is to tab your book. Tab the study guide points and tab the beginning of the chapters. Really there are so many questions to answer in a limited amount of time that you really can't use your book except maybe on one or two questions. You can not use your book for health assessment. I really don't think the book made much difference grade wise because all my final grades were the same for patho (open book test), pharm (open book test), and health assessment (closed book test).

There were recorded lectures for Pharm, Nursing theory, Nursing Leadership, and I think Patho (not entirely sure). There are only a handful of lectures that were recorded for these classes though. Maybe about two or three lectures- that is it. The university used an old database system that was not compatible with my MAC- only a PC. I had a PC available the first two semesters and then with my third semester I didn't have a PC anymore. The lectures were nice but they were old. Not that the content changes (theory, path, pharm) so I guess it doesn't matter. Now they may have changed/updated the database they used for these lectures. I graduated May 2013. Honestly though if you prefer a university that has lectures online USA is not the university for you.

You will have to write a lot of papers at USA. I found that the writing assignments helped me best with learning the content anyways. You had to apply what you learned. I loved writing and researching so I didn't mind this. I prefer to write a paper then to take another test.

The most challenging semester was summer- health assessment and research. Thankfully I did not have to take a third class. Remember the summer semester is shorter compared to the other semesters by a few weeks. If I were you I would try and take research during the fall or spring semester. You had to write a research paper every two weeks. There was no lecture. It was unfortunate because I was really looking forward to that class. I felt swamped the whole semester. You had to read the content and put a paper together every two weeks. I felt that was completely unreasonable. I learned very little and just did what I could to prevent myself from drowning.

I hope this helps.

masonmoore0824 · Jan 12, 2014

I asked the instructor for my section of patho and she said she doesn't know. The course coordinator is the one who sets up the curriculum, so now I'm a little concerned about this too.

tyloo · Jan 12, 2014

What do you mean by your section of patho? You have to read the whole entire book. If you want a head start then just start reading chapter one and keep pushing forward. I don't think there are any recorded lectures for patho.

masonmoore0824 · Jan 12, 2014

Apparently there are different sections that various instructors oversee. We had one assigned then she messaged that she was being switched to a different section and now we have someone else assigned to mine.

tyloo · Jan 12, 2014

That happens every once in a while. It happened to me with two of my classes if I remembered correctly.

masonmoore0824 · Jan 16, 2014

Would you say it is better to memorize the study guide questions or just be familiar with the content? Also, you mentioned to read the chapter summaries. Did you feel like these were a good review of the overall chapter content for the tests, as in if I concentrate on the points discussed in the chapter summaries I will have a decent grasp of the content for the tests?