Question that I need help with

besides, don't you really need your own assessment in order to formulate a plan? You aren't going to revise goals based on an assessment you didn't do yourself, are you?

All the care plans, nursing diagnoses and goals are worthless if a fresh post-op is crashing. You won't know that unless you ASSESS. So C is the right answer.

Badly worded question, but not for the reasons you would guess. Three of the choices have to do with care planning, and one with reassessment. That alone would make you look extra-carefully at C.

However, this is not really a care planning question, it's a question about postoperative nursing. And you would have learnt there that the first thing you do when you receive a patient to your care from the OR is a complete assessment. Period. Full stop. Only possible answer, and not negotiable.

When taking nursing school tests always remember ADPIE, Haslows and ABC's. Assess before doing anything else.

you always begin with assessment. The care plan may change according to your assessment

I would say C. The patient has just returned from surgery, so he needs to be reassessed. This would be a time to check his or her vital signs. You need to know how the patient is functioning and his condition as a result of surgery before moving on to care plans!