FEB 20 LIVE SHOW | The Nursing School Show | ASK US ANYTHING!

Hey, come on, Matthew. Hello everyone. Good morning.

Hi everyone.

Let me get in the shot.

Okay, here I am. Hi. Good morning and happy excited Monday. Happy Monday, everyone. For those that don't know, welcome to the Nursing school show. Welcome back to another episode where we answer your nursing school questions. So hop on in and just talk about random things and have fun. Yes, there is that too. Post your comments. Post your questions. Post your questions up. Let us know how your nursing school journey is going and how we can help you.

We are doing fabulous. How are you?

Yep, it's Monday for us. Nice. Monday morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you. Everyone asking how we are doing. We are fabulous. Your NCLEX is Wednesday.

Wow.

Congratulations.

Congratulations on YouTube.

I hate my life because. Because of pathophysiology.

Don't hate your life because of pathology.

Remember friends, you are absolutely capable of passing nursing school.

You are also in control of your feelings.

So if we are here to help you, make it happen.

Exactly.

Not to control your feelings, but to help you pass nursing school.

Give you the tools to look at your feelings and decide whether those are the feelings you want.

Yes.

And if not, how to change them. Because having that feeling of stress or anxiety or not liking something, maybe not too helpful because you just kind of shy away from it and not do it anymore.

Let's jam on that for a bit.

Actually.

That is a good.

Are we going to jam on that?

That is a very good Monday. I don't want to say motivation because I don't believe in motivation.

Monday motivational.

Woo.

I like alliteration. So does everyone else on the interwebs. So whenever you can pair a day with a word. Yes. Like Tuesday tips or five minute Fridays. I've seen. Or Thursday, I don't know, I'm running out of things. Wednesday hump day. Wednesday. That doesn't. That's not all.

That doesn't do it. No.

That still works though. So Monday motivational.

Okay, sure, we talk about this a lot. So. Okay, friends, all of you guys who are members, you know that we have kind of two separate types of calls inside our Nursing ESSENCE membership community. We have our tutoring calls where we tutor you on actual nursing school topics. So whatever questions you have, pathophysiology, fundamentals, med surg, whatever, you can jump on a call to get tutored. And then also we have coaching calls, which is where I jump on live video with you, pull you on video, and I actually coach you in real time about the things that you're struggling with. Whether it be procrastination, anxiety, Motivation, discipline. If you are just miserable, like you said on YouTube, if you hate your life because of fast and physiology.

So cheers. Thank you for. That's the name, by the way. The name on YouTube is Cheers. Thank you for giving us that comment, because we're gonna jam on that now.

It is just very important that you recognize that that is a choice. Any thought that you have, any feeling that you have, are always in your control. You do not have to have a thought that you do not choose, which is crazy. It kind of blows your mind. Like, if you're so used to thinking something over and over and over again, like nursing school, so hard, there's no way I can pass this exam. Everyone says that this is the worst. And this instructor hates me. We hear that a lot. You know, this instructor has it out for me. We hear that all the time. Anything you think, any thought that you have really needs to be, like the Bible says, submitted to Jesus. You have to really look at that and decide consciously if it's a thought that is serving you, is it helping you? Because so often it's not. So if you are thinking that pathophysiology is so hard, that med surg is too hard, you're never going to pass. It's impossible. If you're worried about things, none of that helps you in nursing school. And here's why. When you're thinking of those things, you are less likely to then study and be productive and do the things you actually have to do. If you are coming to your study session and you are super stressed, you are overwhelmed, you just don't know what to do, that is not a good place to be when you sit down to study.

Right.

That's not helpful for you. So make sure that you are assessing all the thoughts that you have in your mind, making sure that you are choosing them consciously. You have to decide what to think, because that drives everything. It's everything.

And it kind of goes back to kind of. One of our main goals here is to help you study as efficiently as possible, to use your time wisely so that you can make space for other things in your life too, and do other things. And part of working efficiently, doing your job efficiently, studying efficiently, is being 100% focused on something.

Yes.

And so if you have these other thoughts about negative thoughts, they're just going to invade your study time and you won't be as efficient. So really, the ultimate gain there is just think. What would you rather have? Would you rather hang on to these negative thoughts and it might make you feel Good. Or it might make you feel like, oh, if I did bad, then at least my teacher hates me. Well, that doesn't ultimately help you in the end.

You do get a dopamine hit when you feel like a victim, when you are telling yourself that you can't do it and all those things, like, it kind of makes you feel good. Then when you get to your exam, you don't do as well because it validates the thought in your mind. But that's not helpful for you because.

You just didn't do well on an exam. No, no. And then ultimate, you just have to do the exam again or study more.

Or retake the term or retake everything.

Which costs more money and costs more of a headache and all of that. No, you don't want that. So instead, be joyful. Always say it again. Rejoice. Right? And just take your lumps. And this is. This is a season of life that you're going to just buckle down no matter what's going on around you, and focus, so. So you can get things done.

Super exciting, actually. Okay, so if you want to be coached inside our membership community, you gotta join because then I can coach you and we can actually have a discussion on video, basically, in real life.

And also, FYI, membership is open for enrollment this week only. So we do do limited enrollments. Limited enrollments. And so we are open this week. We are open this week. Sorry, that. That took us on a tangent. All right, a membership is open. Go ahead and go to nursing. Schoolofsuccess.com join.

Studying is daunting sometimes. How to make sure I grasp the most out of my study. And how many courses should you study per day? That is a fabulous question. Okay, so I actually want to tackle that first. We've had several questions about the nclex. We've had several questions about fundamentals and pharmacology. So we're gonna try to tackle all that. Okay, so I see your comments coming through. Don't worry, I see you. We're taking note of them. So, Kathrina, thank you for being here. So let's talk about it. When studying is super daunting and you feel like there's just too much to do. So here's the benchmark that you're going to want to kind of just keep in the back of your mind as you are studying. So when you take a look at your class schedule per week, like, what classes do you have per week and how many hours are you in that class for a lecture? I'm only talking about lecture right now. So lecture classes. Let's say you have. Well, Katharina, can you tell me, do you have med surg. Are you in fundamentals pharmacology? What are you taking right now? And on Instagram, you guys, like, post in the chat, what classes are you taking right now? And how many hours per week are you in that lecture class? Tell me.

And this is per week?

This is per week.

Yes. All right.

Yeah. So here's the benchmark that you want to kind of just keep in the back of your mind and aim for is studying for two hours outside of class for every hour that you are in class per week. Okay. It's not like per day. It's not per term, per week. So med surge is at five hours per week. So breeze on Instagram, med surge, you would study for 10 hours per week, which is about right. So for that class, you would study about 10 hours per week. If your class is 5 hours per week in lecture, so then that's. That's pretty accurate. Like that, you know, about 10 hours. Now, here's the thing. We got a fabulous question. I think it was last one last Wednesday. Yeah, the last live. Someone on here asked if assignments and like, like work things count. So like assignments or papers or whatever, practice problems. Practice problems that your school assigns to you, if that counts as studying. And my answer is yes, of course it does, as long as it has something to do with what you're studying. I know that some schools, some instructors could, like, give you a ton of busy work that really, genuinely has nothing to do with anything, which is, I understand, super frustrating, but most often that's not what happens. Most often it does correlate with what you are learning about in class. So if, let's say you're in a med search class and you're studying like cardiac, and then you get an assignment on, you know, doing a case study about a patient with cardiac disorders. And like, what interventions would you do and what assessments would you do and what lab values and all the things? Well, that's studying for your med search exam. So that would be part of studying for those two hours outside of class for every hour you're in class, that counts for it. As long as it is helping you to understand the concepts. Really, that's really what it comes down to. You just want to make sure that you are understanding what you're learning about in class. That's what's really important.

And again, just keep in mind too, that that's a good starting starting point. Everyone could be Different. A little bit here, a little bit there. But sometimes you get into class and you don't have any starting point, so. Oh, do I study 40 hours a week?

Because they're not going to try everything.

No. So that is a good starting point. Start with that. See how you're feeling. Again, Christina's saying that the bottom line is that you're grasping what you're learning in class. So if you can do that in a little bit less time, then that's fine. If, if it takes you a little bit longer, that's fine too. But that, that is a good general guideline. And what you originally said, how do I make sure I grasp the most out of my studying? So, yeah, you want to kind of practice. It takes practice and it takes some trial and error to find that sweet spot. And definitely you can understudy. That's something that a lot of people do. Definitely you can overstudy, which is something a lot of people do.

People do all the time. And the. Really. We actually see overstudying more than we see understudying. Do you guys feel like you're overstudying?

And I think, I think that probably happens more, but people don't recognize it as. As easily as understudying. Like, like, like me. Right. I just didn't study, so that is understudying. And I'm pretty sure I knew that by the way, not a nurse, so.

Don'T, by the way, my experience as.

Something you should do that. Do it as Christina says, not as Matthew did there.

Yeah, yeah, I. And you knew that.

Yes, and I knew that. But the overstudying thing can be a little harder to say sense or grasp because it feels good. You feel like you're doing something.

Yes. Yeah. And that's exactly it. Like, you get that dopamine hit.

Right.

I feel like I'm doing something and that I think, well, I fall into that a lot. Like, I really like to be hyper productive and we talk about this all the time because I'm kind of annoying. It's like I just like to do a bunch of things all the time. And it really is that. It's that dopamine hit where it's like I feel like I'm doing something. So no matter what it is, it might not be something that I need to be doing. I'm gonna do it anyway, you know, just so I can feel better about myself. Not a good thing.

Just in case, which could actually be detrimental.

Yeah, those just in case things. That is so often the enemy so often because it, what it does, you guys, is it, it like fosters that worry and anxiety and the stress. Anytime you are feeling press pressure. Anytime you are feeling like there's not enough time, anytime you are feeling like you don't have enough resources. Friends, here's the reality. God gives you what you need when you need it, but he's not going to call you to something without giving you the resources and the time to do it. Okay? It is such a lie. It is such a, such a lie that you don't have enough time. It is such a lie that you don't have enough resources. You have everything you need to do what he has called you to do. Okay, Can I get an amen on that? So anything that anytime you feel pressured, anytime you feel strapped for time, anytime you feel stress or that worry or that anxiety, that is not from our good Lord, my friends, that is from the enemy. So just keep that in the back of your mind as you go on this entire rest of your nursing school journey, because it's going to save you when you are over studying. Really, that will foster so much stress and worry. And it's often coming from a place of stress and worry. Right. You're like anxious about it. Right. So it's like, oh, I can't stop. I need to continue to study or I might miss a point on my exam. That is just, it's such a, like you said, it's such a detriment. It actually will harm you come your exam time rather than help you.

It's kind of related to another topic that we do talk about a lot is what to study. Along with this, how to, how to study and how much to study. Because you can worry and you can stress about learning everything to make sure that all of your questions are 100% right and that you are able to answer everything. But that puts a lot on you and that puts a lot more time intensive and, and a lot more worry and stress, like we were saying. So again, the starting point of how to study, that's a good starting point to get a general knowledge and to really understand what you're learning in class. Yes, you might miss some details here and there, but that's okay too because again, we want you to be efficient and we want you to be successful as a nurse too. And that's, that's knowing when to, when to stop sometimes.

Julie, I'm glad you use it. That's good.

Yeah, so definitely, definitely, definitely keep that in mind. Another kind of rule, not rule, but something that we've heard a lot is it's the Pareto principle.

I was just gonna ask you about that because you're the pro at that. You're the Expert.

That really 80, 20. It's the 8020 rule. And really, most of the stuff you need is in that 80%. Is there the 20 off to the side? Yeah, there can be. And if you want to spend inordinate amount of time to get that last 20%, that. That's up to you. Like you said, you can judge your own feelings, you can judge your own actions and decide that you want to capture that. And that is really important to you. But mostly. But mostly, all you need is that 80%. That 80% is what nursing schools are looking for to make sure that you understand things as a nurse, understanding the.

Most important things, and be successful as a nurse.

So that 80% is the most important part.

And it's just, it's so. It's so insidious and almost unconscious. Like, you know, you want to read everything in the textbook, right? Because you want to know everything about everything about everything. But it's just not helpful. Just like Matthew said, focus on the 80% of the things that actually matter. Yes. You're going to get a question on your exam that's like from the footnote of page 1432, it's going to happen. But you cannot focus on that one exam question or you won't focus on the 80% of the exam questions that you will actually be tested on and know are coming. Right. You cannot spend all of your time focused on those kind of outlier things, like trying to read every single thing in the book, because then you're not going to be focused on the things that actually matter. That 80%, right?

Yeah. Another way of looking. Another way of looking at it. It's really the. The problem of what if? Right. What if this comes up. What if this comes up on the test? What if this, what if that, and what if it's a just a giant black box that you can fill with literally anything. What if? They ask how many kids the author has.

They could, well, what if.

Okay, I guess what if is a detriment to you. So you know what you need to study. It's what the professor talks about in class. And we give you a kind of a good guideline on starting, on grasping and how much. How many hours to grasp that knowledge. So really, the what if. Sometimes it's nice to think, oh, the positive, oh, what if this happens? What if this happened? But a lot of times it Is it is more negative than positive.

That is just going to foster worry and stress and none of the things that are the fruits of the stuff. Spirit. Julie. Yes. Ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom when studying. 100%. God will give you the answers of what to do and what to focus on.

I. I like that. And I do want to focus a little bit on that. About. About focus. Really? Someone asked last Wednesday. Okay.

Focus on focus.

Yes. How. How do you. How do you set aside like a study area or, or what are the things to do to make sure that you study well? And really that's. That's the main thing is focus. That. That's a really great point is, is what can you do before you study? Like really getting everything set all clean, but also prayer and petition and asking for help. Asking for help. Because it's. It's all right. It's all right to ask for help.

Yeah.

So ask for help and say, hey, this is. This is the time that I've set apart. Bless this time and help me focus so that I can get this done.

Yes.

And move on to do other things.

Seriously, friends, I cannot even tell you. I mean, there's. I've been telling Matthew this for a couple years now that, like, God just multiplies. I mean, we have so much going on, not only in our family, but in the, you know, nursing SOS with everything that we have going on. And there is just no logical way that we get it all done. There's just no logical way. The only way we know that we do is because God multiplies time. Like, God just multiplies it. When we sit down to do something, we get it done in that time frame. Because God multiplies time. It's just completely insane. So Matthew is totally on point with that. Let's talk a little bit about. Okay. Black widow. Hello. I definitely need help on what should I focus on?

So let's do this.

Let's do it. When you are studying fundamentals, med, surge, ob, pediatrics, whatever, there are four main things that you need to focus on when you are studying. You want to focus on the patho. Everything stems from the pathophysiology. So the pathophysiology means what is happening in the body. So the pathophysiology. And then from knowing the patho, you will be able to critically think through the signs and symptoms through the nursing assessments and the nursing intervention. Okay. So everything stems from the path of that. You have to know the pathophysiology before you can move on to the other Things, signs and symptoms, nursing assessment and nursing interventions. Those are the four main things that you need to know for nursing school. Those are the four things you're going to be tested on. When you think back to your exams, when you think back to your lecture classes, those are the four key things that you have to understand. Pathophysiology, signs and symptoms, nursing assessment and nursing interventions. Okay, Those are the four things. So if you're in fundamentals and you're struggling with fluids and electrolytes, like, that's what you want to focus on, right? The pathos, signs, symptoms, assessments, interventions. If you're in med surg, any med, surgical disorder. If you're an ob, any OB disorder, like, anything. You guys, pediatrics, all those things. Those are the four main things. And then also, we talked about this a little bit last week, too, too. When your instructor doesn't teach, who's in that boat? Whose instructor doesn't teach? Oftentimes what we're like seeing now is like these split classrooms where the students teach. Yeah. You can go where the students teach yourselves. Right. Like in groups or something. Or you have like a lot of group work during class. Or, you know, you're even. I mean, even if you're in a group and you're presenting to your class. Right. Those are flipped classrooms where the students are actually teaching the students. The instructor isn't teaching. Another thing we're seeing a lot is case studies, case scenarios, where the instructor just uses case scenarios rather than like actually teaching the content. So who is in a class where the instructor doesn't really teach? Or what we see is the instructor just reads from a PowerPoint or reads from the textbook or whatever. But is it actually like teaching? If that is you, that is what you want to focus on. Okay, Those four main things. Patho, signs and symptoms, nursing assessment, and nursing interventions. So even if it's okay, like, even if your instructor doesn't teach, we're telling you those are the things you want to focus on. Those are the things that are going to show up on your exams. Did you have anything to jam on that?

What to focus on? No, I really think that that's really a good understanding. Again, going back.

Have a cup of cheer, by the.

Way, going back to the 8020 rule. So there are many other things that could learn about anything. Med, surgeon, disorder, like, but the main things to study on. The question was, what do I focus on? That is what to focus on. Patho first. Because it's the building block, it's the bottom, it's the foundation of the building. You need a good foundation. So you really need to understand patho. And out of that stems those other ones. And, and even more so, it really exercises your critical thinking. So someone was just asking, what's the treatment for hyperthyroidism? And I don't think we'll go through that one specifically, but again, general principles apply. What is the pathophysio. Pathophysiology.

Yes.

What is the patho of hyperthyroidism?

Yep.

Why is it occurring?

What's wrong?

And then you can figure out, okay, well if that's wrong, then this is what we're supposed to do.

Exactly, exactly. So the everything stems from the path. Like we said, you guys. So if your instructor doesn't teach during class, that's fine. Focus on those four main things. When you think back to your exams, those are the things you're going to be tested on. It's pretty amazing. They just test you on it in different ways. But really, just like what Matthew said, it's all about critical thinking and this is how we do it. It starts with the pathophysiology. This is exactly what we teach our members inside our community. You have to start with the patho and then you can critically think through everything else. So fabulous example is hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism. We have, we break all those down inside our community for you into four videos. Patho signs and symptoms, Nursing assessment and Nursing intervention. Plus you get the study guide. So we literally walk you through the critical thinking behind everything you need to know. It is amazing. And Matthew mentioned, well, you brought up critical thinking. So I'm going to jam on that a little bit. Okay, make, just make sure that you understand what's happening first. That is really it. And then if you go to YouTube, we have a video on our DRC critical thinking model. I would definitely check that out. So go to YouTube, type in nursing SOS, DRC or nursing SOS critical thinking and then I'll pop up for you. So, so helpful.

All right, so a couple things. Someone's asking how to become a part of our community. So membership is open for this week only. We do limited enrollment, so it's open this week till Friday. So don't delay. Sign up today. I just, I like writing.

That was the latest slash. Awesome.

So go ahead and check it out. Nursing schoolofsuccess.com join check it out in the profile if you're on Instagram, on YouTube, I will type it in the comment below. But definitely go check that out because it Will help you. It is a community that we can help you with mindset stuff, stress stuff, and also the actual nursing information, the four main things to study and how to focus on them. And if your teachers don't teach exactly what's in there, all these we teach you. So definitely go check that out. It is. It will be really helpful. We have members on that are saying it's really helpful.

Hello, friends.

So that is number one. Number two, if you have not yet joined, subscribe, hit The Bell on YouTube. On Instagram.

Follow us on Instagram.

Follow. I guess it's called following, right?

It is, yeah.

Okay. And then on another part, there is actually YouTube being posted this morning. We post new YouTube videos every week and this one is about a sepsis care plan. So talking about the four main things. If you want to know how to write a care plan and you need an example, definitely subscribe, hit the Bell on YouTube. You'll get a notification when that gets posted. And take a look at that because you'll see. You'll see where each of those four things pop up. The pathos, signs and symptoms, nursing assessment, nursing interventions. And you can have a solid example of what we were talking about.

That's funny, Matthew. You'll see. You will see. You will see. Yeah, the YouTube video today, you definitely want to check it out. It's a whole sepsis care plan. So, I mean, it literally walks you through a sepsis care plan. So if you are writing a sepsis care plan, definitely check that out.

Use it as an example, please.

Will help you very, very much. Okay, real quick, friends. I want to talk about pharmacology and how to study pharmacy pharmacology. So because we got some questions about it earlier on in the life and I've been keeping it in my mind, so pharmacology is very similar to studying any disorder for any medication. There's still four things that you need to learn, okay? The mechanism of action, which is how the medication acts in the body. So it starts there, right? Just like patho is the foundation for any disorder you learn about, the mechanism of action is the foundation for any medication that you learn about. You have to understand how that med is acting in the body so that you can critically think through everything else those things. So mechanism of action, side effects, what nursing assessments you need to do for the medication and then any nursing considerations for it. But it all starts with that mechanism of action. You have to understand how the med is acting in the body first and then you can more critically think through those side Effects how? What assessments you're going to do. So let's say it's like a blood pressure medication that you're giving. Well, some side effects could be low blood pressure, obviously, if it works too well. Right. Well, okay, here's a tip for you. Any time you learn side effects of a medication, think about what would happen if the medication worked too well. If it just went gangbusters, worked way better than we ever wanted it to. Those are often going to be your side effects. Pretty cool trick, right? So when you are studying the mechanism of action, think about and connecting those to the side effects. Think about what would happen if the medication worked too well. So let's say it's a blood pressure medication. If it worked too well, you could have decreased blood pressure, hypotension. Okay, so that's a side effect. And then nursing assessments, what would you do? Well, obviously you want to assess their blood pressure friends. Come on, heart rate, blood pressure. Do that every time. So it starts with the mechanism of action. Pharmacology is a lot easier than you're making it. Pharmacology is a lot easier than you probably think it is. So make sure you understand the mechanism of action first and then you can move on to everything else. Okay. I think on Wednesday we're going to do member shout outs because I forgot the list. Yes, today.

So definitely we'll do member shout outs. Again, Enrollment is open, so get in so you can be shouted out. As you can see, we have stickies.

And we're gonna do around here.

I think this is from last launch. But we are going to.

So look at all the last time enrollment was open.

Yep. So we are going to be. Replace those with your name.

So I want to like.

Oh, you just want to add. Okay, we'll just add you to the. Look to the stickies. So there you go.

We have lots of space. I have lots of walls. So we could like.

We'll do a shout out. We'll show you your stickies. So definitely go take it out and enjoy.

Yes. So excited. All right, friends on. So we didn't hit NCLEX today. We can talk about that on Wednesday, do you think?

Okay, yeah, we'll talk about nclex.

Yeah, we'll talk about NCLEX on Wednesday along with.

What was the other one that you wanted to talk about?

Well, we talked about fundamentals a little bit. Okay. So I think we hit most of the like the big questions people have and that we're reoccurring. Did we miss anything?

Oh, and then the shout outs. We'll do shout outs.

We'll do shout outs.

Yeah, There you go.

If you. If we missed anything, tell me. Okay. And then we'll add it to our Wednesday list. All right, so join us, same time. Yes.

On Wednesday for nclex tips and other things. Yeah. And just talk about nclex, talk about fundamentals and talk about you and your questions.

Matthew and I are live every Monday and Wednesday at the same time. So 7:00am Pacific, 10:00am Eastern. Next week will be our season. We call it our season break.

Season break.

Our season break. So we're taking a week off, but then we'll be back the week after, like the first full week of March or whatever that is. I will set it up. It'll be, like, scheduled in YouTube.

It's always scheduled in YouTube. And also all our previous lives are available on YouTube as well. So that's the easiest place to go to replace. So definitely check that out. If you're watching on YouTube, you know where YouTube is. If you're watching on Instagram, you know where YouTube is. So.

Okay, we will see you on Wednesday, 7am Pacific, 10am Eastern. We'll talk about the NCLEX and all your other questions. All right, friends.

Take care, guys.

Bye.

Bye.

Have a great rest of your day and see you later. See you later, alligators.