Supplemental Education

Check with your program about your care plan book, sometimes they want a specific book referenced. Mine uses Nursing Diagnosis Handbook: An Evidence-Based Guide to Planning Care, 10e: Betty J. Ackley MSN EdS RN, Gail B. Ladwig MSN RN: 9780323085496: Amazon.com: Books which is pretty decent. I went through during my first semester (this past fall, lol) and tabbed off specific diagnoses that were commonly used throughout the semester in all of my classes.

Good luck!

start looking at fluids and electrolytes & reading EKGs... they were two of the hardes things (for me) to get a handle on because you need to know so much info so quickly and it's things you'll need to know throughout your whole nursing career and all future exams (maybe not the EKG strips so much, but fluid and electrolytes for sure)

Success series by Davis and Reviews and rationals series by Hogan are excellent :).

The ".... Made Incredibly Easy" series is great.

I also recommend the NANDA-I 2012-2014 because it will deepen your appreciation for the nursing process in ways you cannot understand until you get into it more fully, and this will make you a better nurse with more solid underpinnings in your profession. And help you in your care planning growth beyond "Pain" and "Alterations in ... " you'll see so much of in your classmates' work.