5 Tips for Studying Pathophysiology in Nursing School

Hey there, my friend. My name is Christina Rafano from nursingsos.com and in this video we are walking through five tips to help you really understand pathophysiology faster and easier in nursing school. Because patho is a huge deal, right? You've got to understand patho and then you will be able to critically think better and pass your nursing school exams. So that's what we're going to talk about in this video. So hit that subscribe button and click the notification bell and let's dive in. So I know that so many nursing students struggle with pathophysiology. This was a huge, huge topic in nursing school. You're tested on patho in some capacity all the time. It's not necessarily going to show up on your exams in nursing school, but the thing is that you really have to know patho and understand it in order to pass your nursing school exams. We're going to talk about that in a little bit. It's kind of a weird thing because you're not exactly tested on the patho, but you have to know it really well in order to pass your exams. So the first tip I have for you that's so, so, so important is to break pathophysiology down into step by step processes. I love teaching it this way. I honestly think that this is the easiest way to learn patho is to break things down step by step so you can really see what is happening first, second, third, like how everything is connected in what is happening in the body. So pathophysiology is just studying what is happening in the body during a disorder or a disease or whatever. So what is actually happening in the body. And you're going to break that into simple steps. Now if you want to see an example of this, I have tons of pathophysiology videos on my channel here to help walk you through pathophysiology step by step by step. That is how I teach it. I love to teach it this way because I honestly just think it's the easiest way for nursing students to learn it. I know it was for me. So that is how I teach it. When you can really visualize how the disorders or the diseases are actually like working in the body, like what is actually going on with them step by step. It really helps things come together so you can see it more clearly and understand it easier. And we're going to talk in a little bit why this is so important as we start to connect the dots with things into patho in just a minute. So I'm going to talk about that in just a few minutes. Now, the second tip that I have for you is to start with the causes and end with complications. So when you are studying pathophysiology in nursing school, you want to start with what I like to call triggers, which is like the causes, like what is actually causing this disorder or this disease in the first place. So you'll start with a trigger or a cause, what's causing this disorder or the disease in the first place, and then you will end with the complications. And the complications are essentially just what would happen if this disorder or this disease were allowed to continue. If we didn't do the nursing interventions in order to stop it, like, what are the complications if we didn't catch this disorder or disease quickly, what would end up happening? So those are like the complications of it. And I'm going to have an example of all this in a minute to help it come together for you. But that is so, so important to help you expand your critical thinking skills at nursing school to understand what is causing this pathophysiology in the first place. And then you'll go through the steps of the path like we just talked about. And then you'll end with what are the complications of this disease or the disorder of the pathophysiology of it, what could happen if it were allowed to continue? Now, the next big thing that is super important is to make sure that you are not overwhelming yourself with resources. So try to stick with just two, maybe three really good resources that you trust to help you learn pathophysiology. Really, anything in nursing school, it is so important that you don't overwhelm yourself. Because oftentimes what I see happening is that nursing students just get flooded with, with YouTube videos and textbooks and just different resources that there are so many options out there, my friend, like so many options. And it can be very, very overwhelming to choose the right one that works for you. But I really, really recommend that you cut out all that overwhelm and cut out the noise, basically, and focus on two or three resources that are really, really helpful and beneficial for you, that help you learn and things easier. Resources that you trust. So please do not go and watch a thousand different YouTube channels or read through a thousand different textbooks. Like don't lay out all your textbooks on your desk and try to flip through all of them. Choose two or three really good resources that you trust that help you learn things easier. That's going to cut out the noise, cut down that overwhelm and really Help you be more efficient with your study time and learn things easier and faster because you're not going to be flipping back through and wasting time switching between all these different things. Now with that said, I really encourage nursing students to have two types of resources that, that I call a high level resource and then a deep dive resource. So a high level resource or like textbook is something like this, the, the Made Incredibly Easy series. This one's really nice because they, they go through pathophysiology, fluids and electrolytes fundamentals or MedSurg, like all these different nursing topics and they, they do a very high level overview of it. So you're not going to find like really deep pathophysiology in this book necessarily. When I say deep I mean like something on the cellular level or the chemical level inside the body that is more like the Merck manual or some of your med surg textbooks would depth but this is a high level resource that would give you just a general overview of what is happening with each of the disorders and the pathophysiology with them. So I recommend nursing students have a high level resource like that and then also a deep dive resource like I said, that goes into the chemical level or the cellular level where you can actually really understand what's really going on with this pathophysiology with this disorder. And that's going to be something like the Merck Manual or your med search textbooks that's going to on that deeper level. So check out your textbooks that you already have through your school to see if that's what's happening there. Now of course we do both of these inside the nursing SOS membership community. I walk you through the high level overview of pathophysiology, give you that high level. But also I walk you through the step by step process for all the disorders that you have to know and the path out for them. We go into that more of a deeper dive into so that you understand really everything that you need to know for your med surgical disorders to really help connect the dots and critically think about it. So that's why we teach it that way inside the nmc. It really will help you connect the dots and critically think with how the disorders tie together and how the pathophysiology connects to the signs and symptoms and the nursing assessment, there's the nursing interventions, all that really important critical thinking that you're going to be tested on. So that's why we do it that way. High level and then a deep dive. Those are the two types of resources that I recommend. And that's why we teach it that way inside the nmc. And that is actually tip number five is to make sure that you are not learning pathophysiology by itself, but once you know it, then you are connecting it and critically thinking about the signs and symptoms, the nursing assessment and the nursing interventions. My friend, this is where the key is to passing your nursing school exams. So, so important, because like I said in the beginning, you are not necessarily going to be tested on the pathophysiology, right? Like your, your nursing school exams are not necessarily going to test you exactly on pathophysiology and what's happening with it, but they are going to test you on the signs and symptoms and the nursing assessment and the nursing interventions. And you've got to know the path though, first before you can understand those things, because that is where the critical thinking is. So instead of memorizing a list of signs and symptoms or a list of nursing assessments, that is, that's just straight memorization. Like, that is not critical thinking. You're not really understanding it. You're just memorizing a list that's not going to help you on your nursing school exams. What you want to do is understand the patho first and then you will be able to critically think through why do the signs, symptoms happen, why do the nursing assessments, why do we do those nursing assessments and why do we do the nursing interventions? The way that we do them, connect it all back to the patho. That is the key. Now here's a really good example that I wanted to walk through is sepsis. Now this is straight out of our Med search flashcards that we're releasing inside the nursing SOS membership community, which is so fun. These are brand new. I am so excited to release these to our NMC members because they are awesome and they walk you through everything that you need to know for your exams. So we walk you through the path here. So with sepsis, basically what's happening is that there's a pathogen or there's an injury that is causing damage to the body. Obviously it's triggering the body's immune response. And here's the key, vasodilation and a lack of blood flow to the organs. So this is, this is a great example of how we connect the pathophysiology to the signs and symptoms and the nursing assessment and the nursing intervention. So when you think about sepsis, in this case, we have vasodilation and a lack of blood flow to the organs. So that is the Pathophysiology, okay, the immune response is triggered, and then there's going to be that decrease in blood pressure, vasodilation happening with the blood vessels. So a decrease in blood pressure, and then there's not enough blood flow going to the organs. So when we look at the signs and symptoms, we would see a fever, increased heart rate and respiratory rate. So we would have a fever because that immune response is triggered so that the body's going to try to kill whatever pathogen is in there. So we're connecting these signs, symptoms, back to the pathophysiology. So you got a fever, increased heart rate and respiratory rate. So when the, when there's a lack of blood flow going to the organs, the heart and the lungs are going to see that and say, okay, we need to help get more oxygen, get more blood to the organs. And so the heart rate is going to increase, the respiratory rate is going to increase. Trying to get more oxygen and into the blood, into the body, decreased blood pressure. Right. All that vasodilation that's happening causes that decrease in blood pressure. Okay, the white blood cells, over 12,000, because this is a typically a pathogen that is entering the bloodstream that is really wreaking havoc in the body. So those white blood cells are going to come to help. So that's an infection happening. Those white blood cells are coming to help try to kill that path. Thing I wanted to mention, this is our key critical thinking point on the card is a decrease in urine output. Because when the kidneys are not getting the blood flow that they need to function, they are not going to be able to make urine like they should. So you'll see a decrease in urine output with sepsis. So, my friend, that is why it is so important to connect the pathophysiology to the signs and symptoms. We're not just going to memorize this list of signs and symptoms here. We're going to connect it to the patho. Right? So that is critical. Critical thinking is when we are understanding the pathophysiology first and then connecting it to the signs and symptoms and the nursing assessment and the nursing interventions. So with your nursing assessment, frequent reassessments, we're going to check blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation. You're going to check urine output. Right. Like we said, one of those signs and symptoms is a decrease in urine output. So you're going to track their urine output. Now, lab values, we want to look for blood cultures. We want to actually, because this is an immune response, right? Going back to that pathophysiology. We want to know what's causing it. So you're going to draw a blood culture, white blood cells. Right. We're going to draw some labs to make sure that we understand what's going on here. And we're tracking how the sepsis is progressing. Hopefully it's getting better. Now, nursing interventions, because we understand that sepsis is a vasodilation problem. There's a pathogen invading and then there's massive vasodilation happening in the bot, in the body. So the blood pressure is decre. Our goal is to perfuse those organs to get more blood flow to the organs and to help increase that blood pressure, increase that fluid volume so that the organs can actually get the blood flow they need. So with our nursing interventions, when we understand the path though, we can critically think through, oh, we're gonna have to give fluids. Fluid resuscitation. Absolutely. So during sepsis, fluid resuscitation is a big deal. We want to make sure we are trying to get as much fluid in their body as possible. Okay. Tracking and taken output, of course. Medication management. Antibiotics, vasopressors and oxygen. Antibiotics. We want to kill the pathogen, vasopressors. This is our key critical thinking point here on our card. We need to make sure that we're trying to increase that, increase that blood pressure, increase that blood flow that's going to the organs. So like we said, now that we understand the pathophysiology of what's happening with sepsis, we can understand why would we give vasopressors? Well, if the blood pressure is decreasing and there's vasodilation happening, we want to try to constrict those blood vessels to get more blood flow to the organs. Does that make sense? Sweet. So oxygen as well. So important. We want to get all that oxygen, more oxygen to the organs to help help them function. Right. We want to make the organs happier. So with sepsis, like once we understand the pathophysiology of what is happen with a disorder, then we can critically think through the signs and symptoms, the nursing assessment and the nursing interventions for it. So I hope that example of sepsis helps to all come together for you. Now, if you need help answering nursing school exam questions because those can be a little tricky, definitely click on this video here and I'm going to walk you through the must know test taking strategies to help you pick the most correct answer because that is the name of the game in nursing school, of course. And if you like this video, hit that like button and write love in the comments below to let me know that you loved it. Because that is what we do here. And as always, my friend, go become the nurse that God created only you to be, and I will see you over there in that next video.