Study Tips for Pathophysiology?

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Fellow nursing students,

I wanted to see if any of you had any helpful tips and suggestions on what helped you with being successful in patho. This will be my second semester in my nursing program. The cohort above us had a really rough go with patho last semester and I wanted to know if there is anything that is beneficial to know for the class?

I finished Pharmacology last semester and I found concept mapping and practice questions is what helped the most. Our program (along with a lot of yours I assume as well) uses application questions on exams.

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Specializes in Critical Care and ED.

Check out this guy on YouTube. He's an amazing source

Armando Hasudungan

- YouTube

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I am a comprehensive final away from being done with the 8 week patho class over summer. I'm managing a high B (88%) only because I did poorly with the cardio unit.

I can only speak for my experience, and the expectations of my instructor, so your mileage may vary with your program.

The advice our instructor gave us was this:

1) Remember the big picture. It's all good and fine to remember piddly details about every pathology, but the more important thing is how they fit together. IE, hyperkalemia, metabolic acidosis, and CKD tend to hangout like a pack of mean girls. Focus on how things fit together, how one condition affects another.

2) Remember the basics of Airway, Breathing, Circulation in conjunction with #1. This will help you understand ABG's and compensation.

3) As you start examining pathologies, know 1 or 2 defining characteristics of a particular pathology. IE, Rheumatoid Arthritis is different than Osteoarthritis how?

4) If given the choice of prevention, smoking is always a safe bet.

5) It's never lupus. :-D

Best of luck this semester, you can do it!

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