Please tell me what worked for you in MED SURG?

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Specializes in ED MS.

I am having a hard time reading med surg 1. I dont know how to, and nothing is sticking. i know this is a hard class. Im taking it with math, and microbiology and i really do not want to fail. Someone in my class has already failed it!!!!! Please help me! I want to pass, even with a low passing grade in my school, 80.

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Specializes in Acute Rehab, Neuro/Trauma, Dialysis.

I just finished med/surg 1. It is a hard class and I found that I really needed to treat it like A&P, something that I was told by my advisor was that when going over each system to familurize yourself with what is noral, how the disease process disrupts the noral processes, and then ask yourself why the treatments are helpful for this disease. Spend a little time each day with it, if the teachers has powerpoints and notes make use of them, and get NCLEX books on med/surg such as the Davis Success series, that way you can get use to the questions that may be asked and it gives you rationals for the answer which may help you better understand. Good luck!

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ALWAYS KNOW WHAT IS NORMAL. If you know what is normal than you will be able to tell what is abnormal. It makes it easier. Also for me I made sure to do the readings. We have the medical surgical nursing book by Lewis, which I think is a wonderful book. Aways do the readings and take good notes. For me I made tons of note cards and with that I made one notecards of just what was normal before I entered into all of this abnormal stuff. I studied my note cards all the time and reading the book really helped me! Good luck!

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Specializes in ED MS.
ALWAYS KNOW WHAT IS NORMAL. If you know what is normal than you will be able to tell what is abnormal. It makes it easier. Also for me I made sure to do the readings. We have the medical surgical nursing book by Lewis, which I think is a wonderful book. Aways do the readings and take good notes. For me I made tons of note cards and with that I made one notecards of just what was normal before I entered into all of this abnormal stuff. I studied my note cards all the time and reading the book really helped me! Good luck!

I have the same book, how did u make notes when reading the book? Did u write the anatomy of everything. Is that normal? Thank you both for your answers. :down: I just hope i can do this! When i READ the book i feel like I spend to much time writing about the anatomy of the systems. Is this what u did?

Thank u!

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Specializes in ED MS.

Thank you :cat:

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I struggled with medsurge as well, most do because it's hard! Here's the tips my instructor gave me that worked.

Read. It's hard material but you have to actually read it and understand it. If it takes you 2 hours to read 10 pages or a week to read a whole chapter then so be it. Don't put off reading until just before the test because you will never finish it all. Highlight anything that is important in your book, anything you talked about in class, warnings, ect BUT do not highlight too much.

Answer questions. I bet there is a CD, work book, website or even phone app that goes along with your book. A lot of times they even match up with the exact chapters. Do a lot of questions.

Before the test, let's say the weekend before, only review the things you do not know.

When answering questions, either before the test or on the actual test, cover up the answers and just read the question. What is it asking you? Then read each answer individually. Read one and cover up the rest. Decide if you are going to keep the answer or send it away. If you think it might be the right answer then keep it. Once you decide to 'send away' an answer do not go back to it.

Keep this in mind: if you can only do ONE THING for a patient before you walk away, what are you going to do?

You might know the info it's just the questions that are also tricky.

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I used the same book, and it has a clinical companion book that accompanies it, I read that more than the text, much more concise. If they are testing heavily from the book there is also a study guide for the text that is good, but I didn't use it much since our test were heavily from the instructors power point.

I also used Med Surg Success study guide which I really like because to explains the rationale for both the right and wrong answers.

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Specializes in Forensic Psych.

I do a concept map kind of thing. Med dx in the middle and then a section for patho, signs and symptoms, diagnostic tests, and pharm and non-pharm treatment. Then I do one for the nursing process using the top 3 priority diagnoses.

It works well for diseases. I have to be a bit more creative for non-specific things like periop.

Also, I have a bunch of the Incredibly Easy books. Sometimes I read those first and then the book. Reading it more than once really help cement it, but I'd be bored reading from the same book twice.

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I read through the book and drew the basic anatomy out with little notes by it. The boom does a great job with charts and pictures that I would read what the picture was about understand it and then I would draw it up myself so I understood it later. If you know the basic anatomy with the normals that is great. Also I had my anatomy notes that I would reference. I would also make notecards for the lecture material.

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