In this instructional video, the presenter offers nursing students practical, sometimes controversial, tips for mastering medical‑surgical (Med Surg) coursework and exams. The core message is to study smarter, not harder, by focusing on the information emphasized by instructors—class discussions, PowerPoint slides, case scenarios—rather than attempting to read every page of the textbook. She stresses that nursing exams test critical‑thinking and application, not rote memorization, and introduces a downloadable "critical‑thinking cheat sheet" that outlines nine key questions to ask while studying. The video promotes the 80/20 principle, urging students to spend the majority of study time on the 80 % of material that will appear on exams and ignore the remaining 20 % that is unlikely to be tested. To combat overwhelm, anxiety, and distraction, she recommends planning for "brain drama," using time‑management techniques, and leveraging resources from the Nursing ESSENCE membership (study courses, time‑management course). The tone is encouraging, conversational, and promotional, aiming to empower viewers to become confident, competent nurses.
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Med Surg can be a lot, but you can totally handle it, my friend. I promise you I'm going to give you some really fantastic tips in this video for how to do just that. Some of them, I know they might ruffle a little feathers. That's okay. Some of these tips are a little controversial. Let's talk about it. It's going to be totally fine. Let's do it. So the first tip I have for you for passing Med Surg, you have to focus on the right information. Now, I know there's a lot that you have to know. In nursing school, your instructors are going to tell you to read everything in the textbook. You've got to know all the things about all the things about all the things. Oh, my friend, simply not true. Okay? You do not have to read everything in the textbook. And in fact, if you do that, if you try to read everything in the textbook, you are not going to be focusing on the right things. You are not going to be able to have enough time to critically think about things, apply the information that you're learning. And seriously, when was the last time your nursing school exams tested you on how well you memorize stuff? Never. Right? It's not a thing. When you take your nursing school exam, they're going to give you case scenario questions, priority questions, SATA questions, all of the critical thinking questions. You have to know how to apply the information that you are learning about on those exam questions, right? So reading the textbook just for the sake of reading the textbook, not helpful. If you do that, you're just going to really memorize a whole bunch of things that you're not going to then be able to apply and critically think about on your exam. Huge problem. You do not want to do that. That is a very good way to set yourself up for failure on your ex. Do not do that to yourself. It wastes time and you really need to focus on that critical thinking piece. Now, before I move on to the next tips, I do want to mention here, I have a critical thinking cheat sheet for you that will walk you through what critical thinking is and the nine key critical thinking questions that you want to ask yourself as you study. Because seriously, when you get to nursing school, it's like everyone expects you to know how to critically think, but no one actually tells you what critical thinking is so that she is going to walk you through it. I'll put the link below this video. Just snag it. You're going to love it. Download it with the link below. So what is the right information that you want to focus on. Well, my friend, I'm here to tell you, you want to focus on the information that your instructors talk about in class. So whatever you talk about in class, whatever case scenario, questions they walk through in class, what disorders they talk about, whatever they talk about in their PowerPoint slides, whatever, that is what you want to focus your study time on. Now, if you're a nursing SS member, go to the study course because have a whole step by step breakdown of exactly how to study in nursing school so you can raise your grades and keep your grades up during nursing school. So if you're a nursing ESSENCE member, check that out. It's in your dashboard. You always have to make sure that you are studying and focusing on the right things. Like that is the name of the game in nursing school. You cannot be wasting time trying to memorize everything or learn everything because there is just simply not enough time. 90% of it is not even going to show up in your exam anyway, right? So we need to study smarter, not harder. And this brings me to the next point, the 8020 rule. You want to spend the majority of your time on the 80%. That's going to get you really good grades. You can Forget about the 20%. So here's the thing. Will there be test questions on your exam from like the Footnote on page 1320? Yes, that is totally possible. But here's the problem. If you are spending all of your time reading the textbook just for the sake of reading the textbook so that you don't miss those small percentage of questions on your exams, if you are trying to study for being able to answer every question on your exam that is going to waste so much time, you have to focus on the bulk of your exam, right? Which, like we said, critical thinking and what your instructors talk about in class, those are what you need to focus on. So focus on that 80%. You do not need to be focusing on reading everything in the textbook or knowing all the things about all the things about all the things in nursing school. School that is not going to work. There's simply not enough time. You have to focus on the right things. And this next tip is huge. Like this might just be everything in nursing school. It is so easy to get overwhelmed and kind of like spin in that anxiety and the stress and confusion and all the things like all the brain drama, right? In nursing school, when you sit down to study, your brain is going to give you all the reasons why you can't do it and it's too hard and you have all these other things to be doing, right? So when that happens, you are not going to be focusing when you study, right? You're going to be thinking about other things. You're going to be distracted. You're going to be scrolling through Instagram or TikTok. Not productive, my friend. There is just simply not enough time in nursing school for you to study and be distracted at the same time. No, no, no, no, no. You have to be able to focus and study effectively and efficiently. And this is everything we talk about in our time management course inside the Nursing ESSENCE membership community. So definitely check that out. If you're a member, you don't want to miss. So we cannot waste our time getting stuck in this overwhelm and the stress and the anxiety and all, like I said, all that brain drama. Because that is really going to distract us while we study. When we study, we want to be productive and we want to be efficient. That is what is going to set you up for success on your nursing school exam. So when that happens, when you sit down to study, just plan for it, okay? Plan for your brain to freak out. It's totally normal. Your brain will freak out when you sit down to study. It's going to tell you all the reasons why you can't, all the things you should be doing instead of studying. It's going to tell you all the things. Just don't listen to it. Just say, okay, brain, shh. We're going to do this anyway. And then just get to work. You can do it. So plan for that brain drama to happen now. Like, you know, med surge is all about critical thinking like we talked about. So click on this video here. I'm going to give you some powerful hacks to pass your nursing school exams. You are going to do absolutely fantastic, my friend. Go become the nurse that God created only you to be. And I'll see you in the next video.
