chaley777

I took Maria Leik's live review and listened to Amelie Hollier's CDs and passed AANP the first time. Both Leik and Hollier offered very practical advice for taking the exams. I also listened to Fitzgerald's review CDs but found them to be too detailed for the purpose of the exam. Hollier & Leik cover the basics of all the same systems as Fitzgerald, but they both actually tell you what you need to know to pass the exam the first time. Leik even offers a money back guarantee BEST OF LUCK TO YOU!

I don't have children, but I worked full time through most of my program. I also worked 7p-7a every friday, saturday and sunday. I did clinicals on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, school on Thursdays and homework whenever I could fit it in (one of the benefits of nights is that I could often find time to read a bit). My boss was nice enough to let me take a vacation day or two each schedule and that made a HUGE difference. Just a day to catch up on laundry and life in general :) You've made it this far, so I know you'll do great in the program as well! Good Luck!

Hi Chris, I'm not sure how much help I can be since I just graduated, but I can give you a little perspective :) It is a difficult change to go from Expert RN to Student/Novice NP. Your mindset does have to change, but you will see that the change occurs naturally as you progress thorugh your program. Your ICU history will also help you more than you might think (the ER and ICU nurses seemed to have an easier time making the transition imo). I found that the case studies we did were especially challenging early on in the program, but they were instrumental in helping me to think like an NP vs an RN. The same case studies that took hours and hours at the beginning of the program took just a few minutes at the end. The transition will happen seamlessly and you'll start wondering why they don't teach most of this in nursing school :) As for resources - I strated reading Margaret Fitzgerald's certification exam review book about half way into the program and I'm glad I did. She gives a great rationale to processes that didn't always 'click' the first time for me. Good luck!