Pathophysiology

I've always wantd to take a dedicated pathophysiology course, and that's one of the reasons I signed up for nurse school. Seriously. It's next semester. Health assessment and pharmacology are the present counterparts to it. I'm looking forward to it. It's a new course to the school though. In fact, it's a new bachelor's program entirely. At any rate, none of the faculty have ever taught it before. It'll be fun.

I'm also about 3 weeks into my first semester. So far, for me, it seems like there is a lot of information in that class and it's hard to pick out what is going to be the most important. I'm finding it pretty interesting though, like a melding of A&P and my basic Biology classes.

Hi,

I am a nursing student about three weeks into my first semester of nursing school. I am wondering about other student's experiences while taking Pathophysiolgy as I have heard such negative mixed things about the class. I have heard some people say that they have had to take the class more than once. How was your experience.

I find that the students having the most trouble with pathophys are the ones who never really paid attention in chemistry, anatomy, and physiology. If a student is having trouble with Pathophys class, it is likely because they memorized their way through the previous classes instead of learning. By the time you get to Patho, your foundation for success or failure is already cast.

The words I hear most often from troubled students during classes or study groups is, "Do I really have to know this?"

I find that the students having the most trouble with pathophys are the ones who never really paid attention in chemistry, anatomy, and physiology. If a student is having trouble with Pathophys class, it is likely because they memorized their way through the previous classes instead of learning. By the time you get to Patho, your foundation for success or failure is already cast.

The words I hear most often from troubled students during classes or study groups is, "Do I really have to know this?"

I would tend to agree with this. I found pathophysiology to be the easiest of the series (we take anatomy and physiology as separate courses as well). If you really understand the systems and the normal physiology, patho shouldn't be too difficult.

I spent a lot of time in my studying for patho basically tracing systems and disease. For example, if you look at heart failure, and trace the blood around the body, you can figure out what's backing up and where and what happens when it backs up in the tissues and in the lungs, etc. Then you think about what the body's doing to compensate - dilating or constricting vessels, retaining or eliminating fluids and salts, etc.

It was an incredibly fascinating class and I'm pleased that my ADN course of study requires it even though I often see it only listed for BSN programs.

Pathophysiology was a pre-req for my program. I found that if you paid attention and did well in A&P, then you just build upon that knowledge a little bit and should do well. However, like others have said, if you didn't actually learn the material in A&P then it'll be difficult to understand the abnormals without a good grasps of the normals beforehand.