Critical Care Nursing (3 Things You Need To Know In Nursing School)

Hey there, friend Christina here with nursingschoolofsuccess.com and in this video today we are going to talk about three things that you've got to know when learning critical care topics in nursing school. Let's do it. So the first thing that you. Absolutely, absolutely. I'm going to say it a third time for emphasis, absolutely need to know for nursing school when you're taking care of critical care patients or learning about critical care in nursing school is how to assess a patient. If you are a nursing SOS member, you know this about me, that I am a stickler for nursing assessments. You have to know how to assess a patient, and this is a thousand times true in a critical care setting. Because your patients in a critical care setting are not dealing with just one or two things. It is the full system. They're full. Everything about them needs your assessment, needs your attention and needs your help. So when you're learning critical care nursing in nursing school, you have got to make sure that your head to toe assessment, your focused assessment, your assessment skills in general are on point, my friend. You're going to be dealing with the person's first full system. Heart, lung, kidneys, brain, everything you could imagine. It's all going to come and intertwine and you need to make sure that you're prepared to know what to look for. You need to know your pattern and have it down. Your head to toe assessment, your focused assessments. What are you going to look for in a patient with cardiac issues, respiratory issues, renal issues, you know, all of those things, neurological issues, You've got to put it all together and make sure that you can actually fully assess your patient. Because your critical care patients don't, like I said, don't just have one thing going on, they have a multitude of things going on and you have to make sure that you can assess all of those things at one time. So we really, really, really recommend that you practice your head to toe assessment like it's a huge deal, because it's a huge deal. So make sure that you're practicing all the time and going head to toe following a system for it. So that when you get in front of a patient and you're really nervous and you don't know what you're doing, you actually will know what you're doing because you've done it so many times in practice. I really, really recommend that students actually follow, like it says, the head to toe assessment. So you actually go head to toe when you're following a particular pattern and the same pattern every Single time you, you're less likely to forget things because you're just following the same pattern that you did on a real patient as you did in clinical skills lab and in practice. So when I started nursing school, of course, because he's amazing, who did I practice my head to toe assessment on? My husband. So I was constantly, constantly, constantly again for emphasis, practicing the head to toes. That's been all my poor husband. So, so it was the same way every time I made sure that I went through the same pattern so that when I got in front of a real life patient and I was terrified out of my mind, of course I was, then I knew what to do because it was almost kind of muscle memory. It didn't happen initially, but over time it will, that once you get in front of your patient, you will really have that muscle memory of going head to toe, making sure that you're not missing anything. You know, the more you practice, the more comfortable you're going to get. So make sure that you're always following a particular pattern with your head to toe assessment. Now, of course I have a free resource to help you with this. We do have a full head to toe assessment transcript that you can print off, download, print off, take it to clinical, take it to lecture class, take it to skills lab, wherever you need to practice your head to toe assessment. And it's literally walks you through the head to toe assessment and what you need to say and all the things you need to do. So I hope you love it, I hope you find it super, super helpful. That link is down below for you to check it out. Now the second thing that you really, really, really need to know about when you're studying critical care in nursing school is how to critically think. And we do have a couple videos on how to critically think. You can check them out. Link again down below in the description for you to check those out if you want to. But this is just such a huge deal because especially in critical care, there are so many pieces, like I said, so many things going into that patient and what's going on with that patient. You're not just dealing with one system, like we said, we're dealing with a whole slew of things with the critical care population. You need to make sure that you're able to really take a step back, critically think about how all those disorders really intertwine and relate to each other. Like if they have a heart problem, how does that relate to their lungs? If they have, you know, heart problem, how does that relate to their kidneys? And you know, lungs and the brain and all those different body systems. You have to make sure that you're really able to ask the right questions critically think through what's going on with them and putting all those puzzle pieces together. Of course I have some other videos to help you out with critical thinking in nursing school. So you can check those out down below if you would like. They're going to be super helpful for you. I walk you through actually the questions that you need to ask as you're studying and as you're at clinical to really help guide you in this critical thinking process to. It's. It's really just gives you a framework of what, what questions to actually ask when you're critically thinking. So you gotta check it out. It's gonna help you out so much. Those links again down below. Another third thing that you have to keep in mind when you are studying critical care nursing or taking care of the critical care population in nursing school is that you've most must you have got to advocate for your patient in this setting with that population, they oftentimes cannot voice themselves what they need and their concerns and all those things. So you as the nurse, you as the nursing student, it is your job to make sure that your patient's voice is heard and that they are taken care of in all of the ways. So you need to make sure that if there's a treatment that you think would be best or you know, whatever is going on with them that you need somebody to know about, you need to advocate for your patient and make sure that those things are heard. Like I said with the critical care population, they oftentimes cannot voice themselves. So that's your job. You have to advocate for your patient. So those are the three things that you've got to know when taking care of critical care patients in nursing school and learning critical care in nursing. I hope this video was helpful for you. Again you've got to download that head to toe assessment transcript that I've got for you. It's going to your life in nursing school. You're gonna love it. The link again down below for you to snag it and make sure that you're subscribed to this channel. Hit the like button and share this video with a friend who might also find this video helpful. Let me know in the comments below. If critical care nursing is your jam. Is this what you want to do? Become a critical care nurse? That's awesome. Let me know in the comments below. If not, I would love to hear from you too. Let me know what nursing specialty you want to go into after nursing school. Thanks so much for watching, Friend, and I'll catch you in the next video.