Studying before Nursing school?

direw0lf, BSN · Mar 9, 2018

You sound like me except I did go on vacations too lol. I'm graduating this May now. I got a book, the Illustrated Guide to the NCLEX, before I started my first nursing class and really liked going over it. I didn't always understand everything but I was prepared during class and when the teacher went over a topic I read about like ABG's say I caught on fast. You don't need to buy a book though. You can study some of the topics that are a good foundation nursing subjects:

1. ABGs - metabolic acidosis, metabolic alkalosis, respiratory acidosis, respiratory alkalosis - how to identify and what diseases do you usually see with each

2. Electrolytes - memorize the normal ranges and what diseases and signs/symptoms for each

3. Med calculations - know mL/hour and how to calculate gtt/min and know your conversions

4. A&P - refresh your knowledge, know your bones, muscles, arteries, lymph nodes

5. If you feel weak in a certain subject for example Pediatrics you can LIGHTLY go over some things like infant reflexes and Erikson's stages of life development. Or Maternity, you can go over stations or signs of labor, or Med surg you can go over rhythm strips or endocrine disorders like diabetes insipidus vs. diabetes mellitus (pick a topic you feel weak in or that you think you'll be weak in, these are just my examples)

Main point, don't overwhelm yourself with 100's of sites or books, focus on one topic at a time this summer, also on working as a CNA and building rapports with your coworkers, watch the nurses' assessments. Good luck!

p.s. you can just google any of those topics and pick a site you like best. sometimes youtube works better for people, I tend to prefer reading. I got a free medical dictionary (you can go on nursing groups sometimes people give away books for free just ask for shipping cost) and it sounds maybe boring or whatever but I will randomly open it and read a definition or a few. If I don't understand, I'll do more research online. Good way to expand your knowledge. You can do that with a drug dictionary also, like Kaplan has a cheap one, buy it used on amazon. Also see if you can do a research project with one of your science or nursing professors, explore some topics now and get your ideas prepared to discuss it with them in the fall.

If you need more ideas look into concept mapping:

And search instagram for nursing hashtags, you can follow lots of peoples journeys and they give great advice!

One last tip, if you start doing notes now, TYPE THEM. I hand wrote my notes at first and now I regret that because I just want to open a doc and search for a topic and I can't with my early nursing notes. So I have PILES of papers of my nursing notes and have to go through each topic looking for a specific disease or concept, so it's annoying.

Timbo117 · Mar 9, 2018

okay! awesome! This is exactly the comment I was looking for! I will deffinitly be hitting all those this summer! and congrats on almost being done with the program! i have a HIGH respect towards anyone in the program and who has finished

MiladyMalarkey, ASN, BSN · Mar 16, 2018

I'm the relax before school type, but since you are not: The thing I would suggest & second is electrolytes (know hypo/hyper s/s, normal levels and what to do to treat hypo/hyper) & ABG's. Keep seeing that over and over again in nursing school. Can start learning common medications (generic name is what they test you on in NCLEX), familiarize yourself with the nursing model, ADPIE. Oh and start familiarizing yourself with nursing abbreviations. Congrats on getting in and good luck.

bjwojcik · Mar 16, 2018

I think it is great that you want to get a headstart on your course work. Learning some basic pharmacology would help. You can learn most everything you need to know about dosage and IV flow rate calculations if you check out my post in pre-nursing students called Master your drug calculations BEFORE you get to nursing school. I have a pdf posted in the comments called dosage calculations which will teach you how to do the calculations without formulas. They are pretty easy.

Good luck and congratulations.

Brad

wyofishgirl · Mar 23, 2018

Hey thanks Brad! I'd been stressing about calculations but, after doing some of your examples in my head, I know I'll be ok. Your way is my way of doing it too! I'm still going to download the little book you shared though haha