Nursing School ASK ME ANYTHING!

Fair enough.

You are live. Good morning, everyone. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Happy Wednesday, Wednesday. Happy Wednesday.

Welcome to the nursing school show. Ask me anything.

Ask Christina anything.

That's Christina and I ask you questions too.

So, yes, we are an interactive show. An interactive, engaging show.

Be prepared.

We ask you guys questions, but we also ask you to write down questions, nursing school related or otherwise questions down below. We'll get to them. We are here to answer nursing school related questions and to help you guys through nursing school.

That's what we're here to do.

That is what we are here to do. Okay, are we ready?

Let's do it.

Are we just going to dive straight into these things?

Sure.

All right, so I have some questions from previous AMAs, but go ahead and put in your questions down below and we will get to them.

Juicy, baby.

Okay, let's start with that one. Any tips for a new student nurse?

Hello.

Have you started yet?

That's exciting. Have you started nursing school yet?

New nursing student. Yes, there are a lot of people that are new and starting out. Welcome. Thank you for joining. If you have not, go ahead and follow us or hit subscribe, hit the bell.

All the things.

Do all the things.

So new nursing students, there are new nursing students, a few things depending on what category you fall into. If you are a new nursing student but haven't started yet, there is one major thing that you need to be focusing on. Calc. Okay, so you said you were starting on the 25th of January, so you have like two weeks. Yay. Dose calc. Do calc. I cannot even tell you. I cannot even tell you how important that is. When you get into nursing school. If you're in nursing Florida now, you know this. You will have a dose calc exam within the first two weeks of your program. And more often than not, you have to get 100% on it. Some nursing schools allow you to miss like one or two questions, but for the most part, your nursing school is going to require you to get 100% on that test. It's very important that you get 100% because if you don't pass that exam, you get booted out of the program. It's very, very important. So you have to make sure that you understand how to calculate dose calc. Med math, medication math. There's different doses, calculation, dose, calc, dose calc, all those things. Make sure you understand how to calculate medication dosage. Is that is, that is. It's huge. I can't. I like put me on a mountain. I will just preach it from a Mountaintop along with Jesus. You know, man, this is like my two favorite topics to talk about Jesus and do. So make sure that you understand. Do scalc, like deeply. You do not want to get to nursing school and have to understand how to answer med math questions. Like you don't want to have to study that while you're having to study everything else in nursing school. No, no, no. So understand it before. Make sure you're starting to study that now. Now if you are already, if you've already started your nursing fundamentals. Who's a nursing fundamentals? Raise your hand if you have already started nursing school. It's like what? We're in the second week of January.

3Rd, Audrey said, I just started Nursing Fundamentals and our first chapter is really long, lots of reading.

So that's really the thing. Biggest advice if you are just starting nursing school. You know you started nursing fundamentals or you're. You even just started in a new term and you don't know how this is going. Juicy. Hello, Fundamentals. Jen Barrera, Bella. Hello.

So there's just people coming in.

There's a lot of people saying that you're in fundamentals.

So I'm just going to jump in here too, because we've had a couple of comments too. Our nursing SOS membership community is open right now. It is open until Friday at 4 Pacific. So if you want to go ahead and join the prices.

The price.

Yeah, the price is at 39 right now.

Yep. The price is $30 per month till Friday. The price will be going up. So make sure that you join before Friday.

So I just want to say people have been asking about that. So membership is open and available for you guys to check out if you want to. Audrey, you said you are in fundamentals and you just joined the membership community. Hello. With fundamentals. We do have a fundamentals course in the membership community and we have a fluid and electrolytes course in the flu in the membership community. Both of those are really for fundamentals. So there is that. Yes.

All right.

I think that's it for now. But back to what you're talking about, fundamentals, doses calculations, because Marie is also asking. Let me go back. Marie. I just, I started nursing courses this semester and I'm really struggling with dosage calculations. Is there anywhere that I can get practice pages to do on the daily or practice problems on a daily for dosage calculations. So again, in the membership community, we have a special specific dosage calculations course that has a lot, a ton, a lot of practice questions to go through too. If you are in the Nursing SOS Membership community. If not, you can go ahead and check it out. That is nursingschoolsuccess.com join yes. Take a look.

Do that Dosage Calc. We have so three main courses for you in the membership community Dosage calculations course where we walk you through how to answer those questions. And there's a ton of practice questions in there for you too. We have a nursing fundamentals course that walks you through all the topics that you're going to learn in your nursing fundamentals class. So if you are sitting in class confused and you just leave class feeling more confused than when you went in, don't worry about it, friend. If you don't know what to read in the textbook, it's fine. Pull up a video and we will teach it to you inside the Nursing SOS Membership community. That's what we're here to do. So you do not have to waste time being confused trying to figure everything out by yourself. No, no, no, no, no. Let us teach it to you. We know fundamentals. We know how to teach fundamentals. You will learn it faster. Don't waste time trying to figure it out yourself. Then the third course is Fluid and Electrolytes. We do the same thing. We walk you through how to study and learn fluids and electrolytes faster and be able to critically think about it. So important. So if you are struggling at all with trying to figure out how to study a nursing school, how you're going to learn everything that you need to learn at the speed that you need to learn it. Because you've got an exam next week, right? Like this is, this is go time, right? You've got like so many exams during the term. You need to learn things faster. And so that's what we're here to help you do inside the Nursing Essence membership community.

Okay, a couple other things that just came through. Someone asked, do I have to join the membership community to continue watching your YouTube videos and your YouTube lives and everything? No, YouTube is free. Free for you guys. We always have these available. We do our lives. Every Monday and Wednesday we post new YouTube videos. We actually just started doing that again weekly. We just posted one yesterday.

Yep, on Dose Calc.

Actually, if you're talking about Dose Calc. So last week was about feeding tube, this week was about weight based calculations. So if you want to take a look at those two videos, that is Dose Calc 4U. That's just a, a little bit of Dose Calc. There's a lot more in the Membership community. So no YouTube is always going to be free for you guys. I really say this, I've been saying this a couple times that really enjoy this community on here in in addition to insider membership community. But even our live community, this is a really great community to have. Everyone is answering questions also while we're on. So there is that.

So supportive. Y' all are so supportive. Bella, you just said, I just joined the nursing SS membership community. So happy I did. Yay. Let me talk about fundamentals. So here's what you're going to do when you start nursing fundamentals. So if you have started nursing fundamentals, a lot of you guys said you've already started, so here's what you're going to want to do in addition to joining the nursing SOS membership community. Like, I cannot even tell you how much of a lifeline that is going to be for you in nursing school. So join it if you can. It's going to be amazing. If you can't, that's totally fine. Here's what you need to do. When you are sitting in class, make sure that you are taking notes as like writing down every single thing that your instructor says. As much as you can. Write it all down. And then you are going to take those notes and you are going to look at what your instructor talked about in class. Then you're going to read the sections of the book that relate to to what your instructor talked about in class. So the answer to the question, do I need to know everything in the textbook? We've been asked this a lot this morning. Do I need to know everything in the textbook? No, you do not.

Okay. Marissa is just saying my teacher has said it's really important to read the book and break it down where a lot of people online have said not to focus so much on the book. So this is what Christina is talking about right now. Marissa, so this is for you. I get it.

Like, I get it. As a nursing instructor, maybe you've been out of school for 30 years and you've been teaching. You know, it's just nursing school is different now. Nursing school is different nowadays. Even in 2020. I mean, every 2021, it's so different than it was a decade ago. We cannot spend all of our time reading all of these books, right? These are all my nursing textbooks from nursing school friends. Like, you guys have a stack of like this, just like this, right? Your books look the same as mine. You will not have enough time. There's just not. I mean, it's just logical, right? This is just realistic. There's not enough time to read every single thing in the book. So we have to find alternatives. How are we going to learn everything we need to learn for the exams and then to graduate and become the best nurse we can be without spending all of our time reading everything in the book? Because if you're just reading for the sake of reading, that's not going to help you. You are not going to be able to critically think about it or apply it. You just don't have time. Right. If you spend all of your time reading for the sake of reading, it's not going to be helpful for you. Does that make sense? So I understand where instructors are coming from. I totally get it. I mean, I just oftentimes also, I feel like it might even be a legal thing, like, you know, for accreditation purposes for nursing schools. You know, you have to tell your students, you have to know all of these things. And yeah, you have to know all these things. But, you know, for your exam, there's no way that they're going to test you on all those things. They just can't, or you would be in an exam for years. They're not going to test you on everything. They can't. There's not enough time. So we have to constrain our studying because simply, you only have 24 hours in a day and your exam is next week. And you are not going to be able to read 15 chapters in your fundamentals book or your med surg book and be able to apply it and critically think about all of it. It's not how it works. Right? So here's what we always recommend. When you are in class, make sure that you are writing down, like I said, everything that your instructor says, as much as possible, as much as possible. And then you will go home and. And focus on reading the sections of the book that they talked about in class. And here's why. What your instructors talk about in class is what they believe is the most important things for you to know. So they're already paring it down for you, right? The things that they teach in class, they talk about in class are the most important things that they believe for you to know. That is what they're most likely to teach you on. Does that make sense? Now we have students who are in a HESI or an ATI program. Who is in a HESI or an ATI program. Raise your hand. We have a lot of you, a lot of nursing students in our community, a lot of nursing students on our YouTube, you know, you guys are Instagram, Facebook, a lot of you guys are in an ATI or HESI program. There are some key differences with this. Number one key difference with ATI and HESI is it is a test bank. Your instructor does not write that exam. Your instructor teaches you the content and what they believe is the most important thing for you to know. And then you are tested via test bank. Random questions from a test bank. And you might. I don't know how it works and it depends on what tests you're taking, but your questions might be different than another student's in your class. They just draw from a test bank. So you don't know what's going to be on the test. Your instructor doesn't know exactly what's going to be on the test. But here's what I want to challenge you with is that nursing content is nursing content is nursing content. So if you are studying things in class, that is going to be the same nursing content that is going to show up on your exam. Like it doesn't change. What you see, you know, in the world with pathophysiology is the same as what you see in your textbook is pathophysiology. I mean, yeah, real world maybe a little different, but you know, when patients present differently. But by and large, you know, that is going to. Having, you know, understanding the pathophysiology is going to set you up for success out there in the real world is going to set you up for success on your nursing exams. As long as you know it, nursing content is nursing content is nursing content. It does not change. So don't worry if you're in a HESI or an ATI program. Now, what I will absolutely recommend to you is that you go through the HESI or the ati, like online slides or lectures that they give you. You'll have an online dashboard that you can go through online. And then also with that, do the practice test. There's going to be practice questions online or practice tests online for ATI and hesi. Make sure you do those before you take your exam. So those are my keys for that.

All right, so that was for Marie. Also, you, you asked about hesi and yeah, that's really kind of the main difference with that.

Absolutely.

Okay, let's see. There's a lot of questions coming in. I have captured some of them right now though. Let's take a little break. Last Monday, or last Monday, as in like a couple days ago, we did a couple shout outs to the people that joined the membership. Let us do Some more today.

Scrubs and freckles. You said you just signed up. Yay.

And if you guys just signed up, go ahead and mention it in the comments below. Say hello, welcome, and welcome to everyone. So let's see here. Go ahead. There's the list. If you want to start going down, we'll do half now and half later. Something like that.

Sounds good. All right. So welcome to the nursing SOS membership community. Ola, Deanna, Brett, Olu, Jartu, Janelle, Ayanna, Erica, Anna, Michelle, Drachia, Seneca, Judy, Sydney, Jasmine, Stephanie, Maria, Landry, Tricia, Mar, Mark, Chris, Asia, Mary, Omna, Robin, Debbie, Cavana, Tina, Kate, Chanel, and Lizbeth. Are we scrolling? Maybe we pause there. We could do another chunk later.

There, that's good.

Yeah, that one. Okay, got it. Welcome to the nursing SOS membership community, everyone. So stoked. So that was one chunk. We got like so crazy. We have had hundreds of students join this week. It just, I mean, mind blown. So excited to help you out with nursing school. I am, I am like, I am ready. Let's go, my friends. Let's do this. So if you are at all confused about nursing school, don't worry. Join the community. We will help help you through it.

Nays asks, do you have OB inside the membership community?

Absolutely.

So yes, we do. Gonzalo was asking, is it really necessary to read all the chapters? So that's just a topic that we just went over. No, there's a lot to read. Instead focus on just reading the topics that your teachers talk about in class. Yep. So there you go. Slope as asks. I remember you have mentioned that you have videos that break down the Davis his drug guide. I'm not sure off the top of my head. I don't know what the link we have.

Oh yeah, no, I can tell you the link. But we do have a YouTube video that walks you through like how I tab my drug guide and kind of how to use it. So highly recommended. If you just go to YouTube, type in nursing sos drug guide. Nursing sos. I mean you could type in any number of things. Nursing SOS drugs if you like. I'm sure it'll come up. But type in nursing SOS as drug guide in your Google search bar or YouTube search bar and that video should come up. I don't know, it's probably like you'll see a picture of me going like this or something. I don't remember. But there you go. I walk you through how I tab the drug guide in that video, like how to use it. And stuff too.

I like this one. If you want to do that.

How do I keep my daily to do list achievable? Made my first one last night and totally freaked out. Okay. This is so good. Okay. Matthew and I were just talking about like kind of this mindset that stuff last night and then this morning. We talk all the time.

Once in a while we talk. Once in a while we talk.

We're like constantly. We're like the same person. I love it.

Christina's more of the talker.

That's true. We did talk about that on Sunday. Yeah.

One of us talks.

Yes, I am quite. I am the person who needs to talk through and process things as I'm talking. I don't think things through, I talk them through. How do I keep my to do list achievable? I made my first one last night and totally freaked out. That's the question from Jen Barrera. Welcome, Jen. You were here on Monday, right?

So just, just a follow up question. If you can answer this. While Christina's talking through her things, when you said your daily to do list, like how did you. What does it look like? Is it just a sheet of paper with a list with checkboxes next to it? Is it an Excel and each row is something.

Oh, Excel people.

Yeah, Excel people. So what does your to do list look like? And Christina can probably talk about. Yeah, her process.

Let me tell you something, this guy can make it Excel. Sing and dance and do things you like never. I didn't even know. Okay, here's what I want you to do, Jen. Here's what I want you to do. As you're typing back, you do your to do list. Write down your to do list. Like Matthew said, check boxes, whatever, write it down. Then you need to put everything into a planner. You need to schedule time to do those things. We always recommend that you use an hour by hour schedule. Always hour by hour schedule. So you have like your whole day listed out, your whole week listed out actually, hour by hour. So you know what you're doing at 8am tomorrow or 9am on Saturday, you know, hour by hour. So you're going to do your to do list and you are going to have this whole to do list. And like you said, Jen, like you said, you kind of freak out, right? You look at all the things you've got to do and it's like, whoa. Overwhelming confusion sets in. All of those feelings, all of those feelings that come up when we just get overwhelmed and we get, you know, confused and all the things that we don't want to do it. Right. So the way to combat this is to put it into your schedule so it's not this long confusing to do list. And you have no idea when it's all going to happen. No, it's not how we do things. Write down your to do list and then put them into an hour by hour schedule. Schedule. Put them into an hour by our schedule. So you know exactly when you're going to do each one of those things. You know what time it's going to be, what you're going to do. It's all there on your schedule. So you know, tomorrow at 8:00am you know exactly what you're doing. What is a Saturday at, you know, Sabbath at 9:00am, you know.

Yeah. So Jen says that it is, it is hourly. So that's good. Just wrote down different assignments, things to study, read, et cetera.

Yep. It's hourly. So you did write it down in a schedule in a planner. Like an hour by our planner. Is that, is that, am I reading that right?

That's how I read it.

It's hourly. You wrote it down. You wrote down different assignments, things to study and read. So yeah, when you look at a planner, you know, like an hour by our schedule, literally write down in each block of time what you are going to be doing. Are you, you know, sitting in class during this two hour block and then you're commuting or eating lunch. And then so oftentimes that's what it'll be is like, you know, you have a two hour chunk of time for class like from let's say 8 to 9 you're in or 8 to 10 you're in class and then 10 to 11 you're commuting back home. If you go to school, lunch or.

Whatever, it's going to vary.

Yeah. And then you know, at noon, I'm not getting this time. Right. From 10 to 11 you have lunch and then 11 to noon you're studying, you know, module one of your, you know, exam. You're studying for this one class, this one PowerPoint kind of thing. So you really have to break it up so you know exactly when you're doing something and exactly what you are doing.

So I guess to follow up on your question though, how do I keep my daily to do list achievable? It's really being honest with yourself about how long each activity will take is kind of the next step beyond that. Right. Because I could make an hourly sketch. I could make an hourly planner and say, oh yeah, within this first Hour, I am going to have lunch, I'm going to study, I'm going to mow the lawn, I'm going to clean the bathroom.

That's me.

I can do all these things in this hour.

That's me.

That is not being honest with myself and saying that that is something that is realistic that I could do. So it is kind of a judgment call at that point in time. Really, that first step is getting everything that you need to do out just on a list and then kind of seeing, okay, knowing myself, how long realistically will each of these things take? Not saying, okay, I'm going to take five hours and eat breakfast in five hours, that's going the other way, Right? So it is really that balance. And sometimes, especially when you're first doing it, you're going to get it wrong. You're going to say, oh, I need to study for an hour. And it ends up that studying for an hour, and that's just not enough time. So give yourself grace and adjust for it. Adjust for it and then kind of move things around. It's not set in stone. Once you have it there, then you have to do it or else, right? So it is. It is a learning process. As you get better and as you keep doing this planner more and more, this hourly planner, you'll just get better at figuring out the time, so sticking as closely to it. But then if it doesn't work out, being okay with that and adjusting for it and then using that in the future.

So I think that's exactly what she just said. I think I freaked out because it's so much and I didn't know how to finish it all or I didn't know if I would finish it all. That's exactly what Matthew was saying, Jen, you might be like me. I don't know. Pretty sure we are. I am that person who was like, in this hour, I'm going to, you know, mow the lawn, right? I don't mow the lawn, but I am going to, you know, do the dishes and do the laundry and I'm gonna memorize, like, all of these medications that I need to know for nursing school. And I'm gonna listen to a podcast. You know, I'm gonna do all these things in one hour. I am that person where I'm like, I can. I can do it. I can do all those things. I think exactly what Matthew said. It's experience. Like, you are going to really mess this up in the beginning. But the more you get practice at it and the more you, you Know, schedule your time and do and, you know, keep to your word and actually do what's on your schedule. Right? The more you do that, the more you'll see. Oh, it does take me a little bit longer to study these things from this one class, but maybe this class, it doesn't take me that long to do. Like, maybe I'm really good at skills and I learned those really fast. But it takes me a little bit longer to understand the med surg lecture content. Then you can kind of, you know, shift things around. If it takes you longer to write a paper than it does to write care planes like, you just, you shift things around and the more experience that you get, the better off you will be. But this does not mean so, friends, when you are just starting your hour by hour schedule, it's gonna be a little rough going for a few weeks. But that does not mean that you quit, right? That does not mean that something is terribly wrong with. Just means that you need more experience with it, you need more practice with it and you just keep going. It doesn't mean that it's not going to work. It just means that you need to keep doing it and keep learning about yourself and how you study and how you manage your time. Does that make sense? So don't quit on it, okay? Don't quit on yourself. And Bella, you just said, I've done the hourly schedule before but found myself overwhelmed and I was not able to finish a task for a particular time and put it pushed me late, it pushed me late for the next task and I found myself even more overwhelmed, okay? So here is the thing, friends. It's exactly what you said. Bella, you. It's going to be rough. It's going to be rough going the first few weeks as you're doing this and you're learning about yourself. But the key is to not get overwhelmed. Just to say, like, this is expected. It's expected that this is going to be kind of rough going for a few weeks with this hour schedule. Like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to write everything down on my schedule and I'm going to stick with this. But I know going into that, that I'm not going to be totally accurate with, with how this is. I'm going to do my best to schedule things and plan things out how I think it will go. But. But of course things are going to come up. You know, days are going to look a little bit different. Like your kids are, you know, going to be a little more energetic one day and need more of your attention or always, you know, like, things are going to come up and you just kind of have to flow with it. It's not going to be perfect. And that's okay. You just keep going. And really the key is to know that when you're falling into this trap of overwhelm and confusion, that is not a place that you want to be in when you study. Because kind of like you said, I think it was Bella. Right? Bella. Bella and Jen. If you get overwhelmed, if you're looking at your planner and you just don't know how you're gonna do it. All right, you don't know how you're gonna do it all, it can be easy to get overwhelmed. But then when you're feeling that sense of overwhelm, you are less likely to take action and do the thing right. How, how well do you study? How well do you study when you are confused, anxious, stressed, overwhelmed? All of those things. We don't study, we don't learn things very well when we're spinning in anxiety and stress. It's much better when we can calm down, you know? Right. We have a plan. We know that it's not going to go exactly how we planned it, and that's okay, but we're going to try our best anyway. Does that make sense?

So Ms. Lopez also said your planner tips has helped me so much, and she has a really good point, too, to scheduling breaks as well. So Christina says that she, she recommends an hourly planner and that that's good so that there is a little bit of wiggle room within the hours. But if you need a little bit more than that, be sure to also schedule in breaks because you don't want, like, realistically, you're not going to go from one test to another to another to another. Just you'll get overwhelmed again. So, yeah, be sure to schedule in breaks as well. Someone that I follow, actually, his Planner is every 15 minutes, and that's a lot tougher because. Yeah, yeah, because that, that is a lot shorter time. But he's been doing it a long time and found the way that it works for him. But he schedules everything in those 15 minute increments. So I wouldn't say you don't need to go down to that detail, but an hour, at least an hourly, then you can get a better idea of just the flow of your day. And then, yeah, you have to adjust a little bit. And if you schedule in breaks, that allows you to adjust as needed without feeling overwhelmed. And that's really the key thing this planner is supposed to be a tool for you to use. Any of the things that we are recommending or that we want you to try out is things, tools, tools to help you study better or more efficiently. If you find the planner tips and you say, okay, I'm gonna do it, and you end up spending more time than, like, your whole day just figuring out your planner and just doing your planner and using it as an escape to actually escape from doing your actual nursing work, then. Then it's not working for you. So it's also a judgment call on which of these tools would be helpful for you and which ones to say. You know what? It does make me overwhelmed. So we found that the planner does help with lowering your stress, lowering everything in your head. I would say it's better just to get it out on paper, out somewhere, because if it's not in your head, you don't need to think about it. And that lowers your stress and gives you the ability to study or focus more. Latoya was asking some tips on staying focused. We could talk a little bit more about other tips on staying focused, but I think the main thing about that is how can you get as much stuff out of your head as possible? And one of those things is through a planner, planning out your day, knowing that it's not going to be 100% accurate and being okay with that.

Yep, absolutely. Marie, you said thanks. I'm glad these tips are helping you. Jen, how long should the breaks be? I think it depends on you, and then also it depends on how much time you have. So for me, I mean, I also. I'm gonna say it also depends on what you're doing during the break.

So I'm sleeping for this many hours and I don't get to take a break sleeping in the middle with more sleep.

That's. That's a really good example. You are so clever. I like that. Yeah. If you need a nap, like, 15 minutes might not be enough, like, for me. Come on. 15 minute nap.

No.

I'm just gonna wake up more tired than when I went to sleep. Right. So that would be like an hour and a half. My sleep cycle is an hour and a half. I don't know. Is that, like, normal? The sleep cycle is an hour and a half.

I don't know if there's a.

So my sleep cycle is an hour and a half. And I know that if I'm taking a nap, it has to be at least an hour and a half. I am a posh napper, which I never take Naps. That's why it takes me an hour and a half, so that would be longer for me. But know yourself, know thyself. If you are doing a break and you're just eating, you know, you know, 20, how long does it take you to eat? Like for me, seven minutes and I'm good. Five hours. Seven minutes is good for me for eating. You don't get caught up on scrolling Instagram or Facebook. If you are taking a break right now, a break right now and you're on Instagram watching us, be very careful with that. Don't get sucked into Instagram during your break. I think that more. There are some things that are more restful than others. So when we think of a break, you need to be careful about what you're actually doing because some, some activities that you can do during a break are more restful than others. Would you agree?

I would agree. Yeah.

Like Instagram, Facebook, the news. Like don't do things that are going to upset you. Right. Don't look at Instagram, don't look at Facebook. Things that are going to get you like caught in this, you know, whatever cycle and then stuck there for an hour. Right. But go for a walk, you know, go for a walk or something outside or, or just even walk out, you know, just walk outside really quick and like stretch, you know. That might be a good enough break for you. It depends, you know, it depends on you and it depends on what you're doing. But realize that it could be a short break that's really restful or a long break if you just waste time, like scrolling Instagram, which is not really restful. I think we can all kind of agree with that.

Yeah. So it's when you're on your phone, a lot about it is quality of time. So make sure that it's, it's high quality of studying and high quality of, of breaks as well. So just make sure that when you're focused on doing something, you're focused on doing that and it's high quality. So if it's a break, focus on break.

Right.

And, and do that as well.

Read your Bible. So that's exciting. I like that activity.

Robin. Hi guys. I just joined your membership on Monday. I'm the LPN student that asked last week about your membership. So excited to be here. Excited to have you. Thank you.

Sweet.

Anna's asking, do you have anything on pre operative care in the membership?

I don't think it's labeled pre op care. We have like assessments and stuff. Yeah, it depends on what your School considers pre op care. That's, that's where I'm gonna leave.

So. So we'll leave that there. But it is related to another question that Nays has. Is there a Facebook live every week inside the membership community or have some way to answer questions? So we do have our tutor form that is available to nursing SOS members and basically you just shoot us a question and one of our nurses will answer and help you out like a tutor, but on demand.

It's amazing.

Within 24 hours. So if you have anything specific, Anna, about pre op care or Nate Nays, if you have any specific questions to ask, definitely use the tutor form. Ask your questions and get responses. So that is there for you. So if, if you can't find the exact thing you're looking for in the membership community, you can go ahead and do that.

Yep. If you're on YouTube, can you hit that like button? Please hit the like button on YouTube and click subscribe and hit the bell. We have some really fantastic YouTube videos coming out for you. Just reminded me of it. So subscribe, hit the bell, come on over to our YouTube channel. If you are not on our YouTube channel, make sure you're subscribed and hit the bell because we've got some really, really great things coming out for you. So you guys hit that like button. So fun.

And those just joining. Welcome to the nursing school show.

Hello.

We're answering nursing school questions.

That's what we do here. Can you guys believe who has been with us for the entire seven months? I know we have a few of you on here who have been with us the entire seven months that we have been doing this. Like, maybe you missed some days, that's totally fine. But who was actually watching the nursing school show back in July when we started? So fun. I know there's several of you on there because I know your names and you can't hide from me.

Finishing up our previous discussion before going on to our next question, Ms. Lopez just had a follow up for how long should you take breaks? Her recommendation for what works for her, maybe 30 minutes to an hour to take a walk, listen to a little music, grab a snack. No Netflix or social media. So what we were saying enough. Enough to feel refreshed and energized so you can continue your work and studying. Brilliant.

Love that. Yes.

Perfect.

Arietta, you've been watching us since July. Yep.

Oh, Jenny. I started watching you guys on my phone out. I got into nursing in July.

You guys have made me realize that I can do it. Yes, you can. Jen, I'm so excited. Yeah, it's so fun to see. I think we just get, you know, like, we just know you guys, right? It's so great to be here, you know, multiple times a week with you on live. So fun. It's been. It's been really, really cool.

It's been really good.

Really, really cool.

All right. Skyler had a question. It's my last semester. Congratulations. What tips can you give me about finishing nursing school and subsets of those. Nclex Preceptorship and Possibility RN to BSN course.

So, like, the end of nursing school, you'll talk about, like, ethics and things most likely you might do, like, crazy critical care stuff. Really, the biggest thing that I think nursing students get caught up in is NCLEX prep. Here's my personal opinion about this, and this is just from my experience. I know people have different experiences at their nursing schools, but by and large, here's my experience. If you went to a nursing school that was rigorous, that you really, really, really focused on and studied really hard, and you did okay pretty well, you know, you did either okay or well, like you. When I say okay, I mean, like, you got B's or A's. You know, like, you did okay. You got B's. If you were, like, riding the line in nursing school, you might want to study harder for the nclex. But if you got, like, B's, A's, and B's in nursing school, honestly, I. I do not want you to worry about the nclex. I just don't. I think you can study by using the My Mastery app or another. We have this one here that I've been wanting to point out for a little while. Davis. This is the Q A for the nclex rn. And we also. Oh, my. Saunders is not here. Any book that is like, nclex Question Practice, right? So a book like the Saunders or the Davis Q and A is recommended. Or the My Mastery app because it's on your phone. So you can just go through nursing exam questions and see where your knowledge deficits are, what you need to focus more on and, you know, study more and things that you're good at. But honestly, I know when we graduate nursing school, we get, like. We freak out. It's like, you know, everyone fails the nclex. No, they don't. Like, way more people pass the nclex then fail it. Trust me. So you. You just, like, you know, don't listen to the naysayers. Right? You can absolutely do it if you Got through your nursing school program, if it was rigorous, if you did pretty well. I'm not even worried about you. Not even worried. You know, still do practice questions. We say about 100 a day. 100 practice questions a day. Just get familiar with it. You're never gonna know everything. You are never gonna know everything. You can study for months or years and you will still get questions on the NCLEX that you just have never heard of before in your life. I don't even know what that is. I don't know. They can throw anything at you. So just roll with it. Roll with it.

Well.

For my school, our, like, preceptorship was. Yeah. Like you said, right at the tail end. I don't know. Advice about your preceptorship. Same thing with just nursing school in general. Get to know your co nurse and always raise your hand.

Volunteer.

Volunteer yourself.

Get. Practice.

Do everything.

Do everything.

Yeah, do everything. And if your preceptorship is not in a facility that was your top choice, that's fine. Take advantage of all the opportunities anyway that are presented to you. You know, all of those things. Yeah.

And then RN to BSN course. Any thoughts about.

Yeah, this is really common. Check with your state. Check with your state is my number one thing. Check where. What the state is requiring and will start requiring. If you need a bsn, if you don't need a bsn, if you want to do the bsn, great. If you don't want to do the bsn, you know, make sure you check what your state is going to require of you in a few years or because some states now are saying, you know, we want all of our nurses to have BSNs or like, hospitals. Right. Facilities. You know, they. A hospital in your area might say, we only hire BSNs. So, you know, those. Those types of things. Definitely check that out before making that decision. And if you want to, I mean, if you want to, great. But if you're like, meh, maybe not, then, you know, that's fine too. But check with your. I would check with your area and where you want to be employed as a nurse and if they require it or not.

Okay. All right.

Yep.

Judy, Serena, and Khadija all have related questions, so they're a little different. So I'm actually going to read all of them, but they all have kind of a general theme to it. Let's see if you can guess what it is. Oh, I just got accepted into nursing school. This is my second time. I failed nursing school once, and I am now scared to fail. Again, what advice do you. Can you give me to do better this time around? So that's number one. Number two, good morning. I've completed fall 2020, took fundamentals and virtual lab clinical, was in person. I didn't pass health assessment. What pointers would you give me when I retake assessments?

We're talking retakes, and then I see.

The theme and then the other one. Hi. I previously withdrew from my local nursing program, and I'm about to reapply. Is there any advice you could give me before reapplying? So this one's slightly different because the other two is about retaking something or not passing something. Serena, I'm not 100 sure. The reasons behind withdrawing and reapplying, whether that is because you had to, because you failed the class or failed out or whatnot, and now you're reapplying, I'm not sure. But I think that it is all the same in that you're trying again or doing something again. So what tips do you have again for nursing school in general or specifically, if there's anything different with retaking assessments? So just that general. I wanted to come at it from mindset perspective on I failed something and I'm going to do it again. What pointers do you have for me?

Absolutely. Boy, do we have pointers. So often. The trap that we fall into if we do something that we wanted to accomplish, like, say, that we have a goal for ourselves, and then it doesn't happen, we tend to automatically assume that it's not in the cards. It's not God's plan. It's just we're not good enough. You know, it's. You know, it's not. It's just not going to work out for us, you know, so if you were in nursing school and you had to withdraw or you failed out, it's easy to fall into that trap that, oh, that just might not be what I'm supposed to do. Not meant to be. You hear all these phrases, right? I'm not good enough. Like, it's. It's a total lie, my friend. It's a total lie. Just because you failed out of nursing school does not mean that you will not be an amazing nurse if that's what you want to do and if that's what God plan, plan for you. So make sure they do not fall into that trap, number one. Number two, it's very, very important that you take what you learned from that experience and apply it going forward. So using nursing school, you know, if you took fundamentals and then you failed out or you had to withdraw for some reason, and now you're like, I'm not gonna pass. Like, I. I want to start again, but I just. It's so hard. I'm not gonna make it. You have all these. All these things come up, right? In your thoughts. All these things come up. That is the biggest lie. Right. You're gonna tell yourself, I can't do it. I'm not good enough. Like, it's too hard. You know, all these things. Here's what I want you to do instead is take what you learned from that class before and apply it to starting over. Because you were already in your nursing class and you learned. Like, here's. Here's. Like, you know nothing. Right. You're just starting nursing school. Like, here's your baseline. Then you took the class, and now you know this much, but you failed out. So now your baseline is here. Everyone else in that class now is starting here. So you know half the stuff already. And then when you come in, your new baseline is here. And now you can go and learn the other part. Right. The other half. That's always how we explain it. So don't just forsake everything you learned. You know, take that with you. If you learned, you know, if you had to drop out of med surg or something. You know, take what you learned. You already. You learned so much in your med surg class already or in your fundamentals class already. Take that. You already know half the stuff. Why are you telling yourself that you're going to fail? Just because you failed out before does not mean that you're going to fail out again. Does not mean that. Like, we hear it so much the other way. Like, I failed out before, and I did so well the next time. That's what we hear most often, is students saying, I failed before and then came back swinging. Right. So I want that to be you.

Yeah. Definitely. Use your past experience as exactly what it is. Experience and learn. Learn from it. So learn what didn't work for studying. Learn what did work for studying?

Absolutely.

For general things. For health assessments. Yeah. Take the knowledge that you gained already. It's not like it's going to change 100%. They're not going to change nursing on you when you. When you go back. So. Right. So take that knowledge with you and then also take the experiences and how you did things and look at it at a critical eye. What worked for you, what did not work for you, and learn from it and adjust and do. Yeah. And just be prepared to Take those learning experiences and move them forward. With Serena you're talking about, is there any advice you could give me before reapplying? I'm not sure if in the reapplication if you have to like talk through why you withdrew or why you, you believe that you should come back in or sometimes they ask, okay, why, why should we let you back in? So definitely there, it's the same thing, but now you have to describe it to them if you need to reapply and actually describe it in person. So describe to them. Okay, this is, these are the specific examples of where I, it didn't work for me back then. And this is what I'm going to do to be successful, to be successful this time around. So be very clear if, if that's needed in your reapplication, be very clear to them that this, this is how I'm going to learn from my past experiences and this is how I'm going to be a successful nurse.

So good. This is how I'm going to learn from my past experiences. I love that. I love that. Let's do some member shout outs.

Member shout out.

Member shout outs. If you are on YouTube, can you please hit that like button, make sure you are subscribed to this channel and click that the bell please.

Where are we? Oh, there we are.

We've got a lot of, a lot of students on my.

Yep. All right. There we go.

Sweet. Okay, so I start there. Okay. Welcome. Okay. Little, little premise here. The Nursing SOS Membership community is our step by step guide through nursing school where we teach you what you need to know. In nursing school, you do not need to waste weeks or months trying to figure it out yourself. In nursing school, we walk you through it step by step. So you learn from me, you learn from. If you want to submit a tutor form inside the Nursing SOS Membership community, when you have a question, you can submit a tutor form and a nurse on our team will get back to you within 24 hours. It's amazing. If you are confused about nursing school at all, this is the place you want to be. And so we just opened enrollment on Sunday. The price will be going up on Friday. Friday. So make sure that you join now, please, because we always get emails from students saying, oh no, you know, so don't email me, please, just join right now. So we did member shout outs at the beginning of this live. We did it on Monday too. So I want to do the other part of the members. So welcome to the Nursing SS Membership community. Teresa Veronica IRVIS Regina, Michelle, Melissa, Crystal, Crystal, Katrina, Janice, Emily, Paulina, Sarah, Jennifer, Aubrey, Edwina, Maritla, Tammy, Heather, Marie, Laura, Sherry, David, Chevroup, Sandra, Darlene, Caroline, Blair, Ariana, Lynn, Nikki, Brianna, Marie, Yantra, Lawanda, Lori, Cindy, Amy, Lauren. We got a scroll.

There you go.

Kayla, Nin, Ariel, Marta, Lauren, Amanda, Chalice, Yalia, Cassandra, Abigail, Lindsay, Stanley, Jill, and Jennifer. Welcome to the nursing so as membership community. Well, we have had hundreds of students join this week. It's amazing. I am so excited to help you through nursing school. Like I am. I am here for this. Let's go. My friends, if you are at all confused about how to study in nursing school, don't worry at all. I'm here to hold your hand. It's not a big deal. We're going to do this together. No. Do not be stressed or anxious or overwhelmed about nursing school. No, no, no, no. Just let me, let me come alongside you. We will come alongside you. We will help you through nursing school. It's going to be totally fine. I'm stoked. I am totally ready for this. He smiles at me because he's like, wow, friend, you are so. You are so bad.

Christine is all about that. That's really true. So thank you all for joining and like I said, our community is awesome, both here and in the membership community. Just really uplifting and helpful. So that is really, really great.

I live for Jesus and helping you through nursing school.

I had actually, I forgot a question up here that kind of talks. It's related to our previous question about failing and moving forward and failing. But Ella was asking specifically about skills or doing a skills test or what do you call it?

Yeah, skills checkoff.

Skills checkoff.

Yeah.

That's what you guys call it? Yeah. What happens if you fail a skills checkoff? Skills test.

You do it again.

There you go. Is that it? Is that it? Is that really all that happens?

I mean, depends on what level you failed at. So in our nursing school, and it also depends on what your policy is for. For a year in nursing school. But for us, we got like two or three times to take it. I think it was three. Here's my story. In nursing school, skills are not my thing. Skills were not my thing in nursing school, not my forte at all. I am very good at the lecture content and learning things real fast I came up with, which is why we created the nursing SOS membership community. I created a step by step process through nursing school. I know how to teach you step by step through nursing school. So that's why we do that. Now, skills, on the other hand, I figured out how to do them. Not my forte. Med surge lecture content. That is where I shine. Skills. No. I failed every single skills test in nursing school. I had to retake it every single, single time. I don't think there was one time that I passed it the first time. What are you gonna do? Some people's strengths are other people's weaknesses, and your strength is. If that is skills, is my weakness. But if you fail it the first time, you just take it again. You just practice. Just practice and practice and practice until it's muscle memory.

And we talk more about general skills questions on Monday, if you're more interested in that. We just weren't able to get to that last part about failing a skills test. So don't worry too much about it and just try again.

Try again.

All right.

If you fail anything in life, no big deal. Try again. It does not mean you are a failure. Does not mean it's going to work out or it's not going to work out later. Let's try again.

Yeah.

Failure is part of the process. Failure is part of the process. I cannot even tell you. I was just thinking. I forgot to mention this. I wanted to create a itemized list of my failures from 2020.

Oh.

Because I want to remember them. They were.

That's interesting.

They were epic. Do you guys remember the time. Do you remember the time when we sent an email to our students and instead of sending the email to our students, we emailed me thousands.

Oh, yeah.

Thousands and thousands.

Was that just in 2020?

That was just in.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. My inbox still has all those messages. Epic.

By the way, we posted on Instagram about it because I'm scrolling through emails. We. We were supposed to send an email to our nursing students, but instead of sending it to our nursing students, we ended up sending it to the admins, which is us. And so he got half and I got half. Thousands and thousands. I think tens of thousands.

I don't.

I mean, it was thousands and thousands of emails to our inbox, and we're like, I remember you being on your phone. Like, I mean, I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna put it down because you were clearing them as they were coming in, and you're like, I'm just gonna leave that because it's, like, buzzing for an hour. Diana says, I remember that. That's so funny. So it was terrible.

Mistakes, mistakes.

You gotta move forward. Yes. Last year also, our website went down and our email went down for, like, A little while, a couple of days. That was rough. You know, just things happen. You got to move forward, my friends. You have to move forward, man. I'm telling you. I'm telling you.

That's funny. I forgot about those. So. But yes, I still have those emails, so I should probably clear those out.

I would very much.

New year, new inbox.

New year, new inbox. That's great. You, like change your email every year because you're like, I just don't want to deal with emails from like, forget about Inbox zero every year. I'm just gonna start fresh.

Just delete all my messages.

That's fine. That would be so funny.

Okay, Jor has a question. We talked about HESI a little bit earlier in this live, but Jor's question. My school uses HESI for their exit exams.

Yep.

Can I use the Saunders comprehensive review as a source to study? I'm unfamiliar with what the exit exams is and is it a one time thing?

So this goes back to what we were talking about a little bit earlier in the lives. Nursing content is nursing content is nursing content. Ideally for the HESI exam, you would study the hesi. Like you'll have an online dashboard of like HESI slides and stuff to study and then practice questions if your school has that capability. So I would do that first. But my school did the exit hussey. I did the exit hussey and that's actually exactly how I studied was I use the comprehensive review guide and I did the HESI slide and I did the practice questions if they were available. I don't even remember now I remember doing the slides and the comprehensive review guide for Saunders is what I used. I also use the NCLEX Mastery App.

Or Change Mastery App.

Mastery App. My mastery, I think is what it's called. So yeah, totally. Because the nursing content is nursing content is nursing content. Now, is it a one time thing? That depends. If you pass it, pass it the first time, it's a one time thing. You might need to retake it. If you didn't score very well on it, you will need to retake it. Yep.

Okay. So there's basically like a threshold of if you score above this and you're good.

Correct.

Okay.

Yes. Yep.

All right. And then Hannah, I. I like your question here too. It goes back to a little bit earlier. We were talking about planning and using a planner and other things, but this one's related regarding planning and handling messages, text and emails. Do you set aside designated times for those things or do you handle them throughout the day so they don't pile up.

This is so funny. I was just gonna text one of my friends about this. I am okay if you know me in real life, you know me in real life. But like, in real life, you know, my friends that text me, they know. I think, I think all my friends know that they're not going to get a response from me Monday through Friday. Basically the only time I text my friends is on Sabbath when I catch up with everybody. Because, like, Monday through Friday, we are like, I'm with my kids, we're doing this. You know, we are working, you know, I'm working, you know, we're. We're doing things. And then on Saturdays is really when I just text everybody, like, hey, how was your week? You know, all these things. And like, I respond back to all the texts that had come in that week. That's kind of how I do that. It's. I think my friends know at this point, don't expect a response from her. It really follow her on Instagram.

It really depends on you. I can give you the, the textbook answer to that. And I'd say time block. Yeah, yeah, it's about time blocking, if that works for you. So if you treat nursing school like, like your, your job or, or your job like your job, and then you, you set aside that, okay, I can. If, if I need to answer messages, I can do so in the morning, your time sit to do those time blocks of, okay, answer all my messages this time. And this time I know that that's my textbook. The right way to go. I don't know. I've never done it that way. I am more of the, okay, as soon as it comes in, let's read it and do it. And as long as it doesn't distract you too much, I think that that's fine. It really is about how you are able to switch from tasks and do that as well. I'd say that ideally that's what you would do is time block at certain times, even time blocking as far as into the weekend. So gather everything up. If you want to get really, really fancy with it, you can tag people with, oh, these are emergency messages. And then those will come through, and then not then they won't.

But that's not like me. I'm not time blocking on Saturdays. I'm just like, putting it off until Saturday. That's not me. Time blocking. Um, I don't like. Yes, you check it as they come in. My phone does not ding when an email comes in. I don't have that set up. It's like it doesn't, it doesn't go to my phone. So if you send me an email, it doesn't go to my phone. Um, well, if you send like, like, you know, if like my personal email. Right, it doesn't go to my phone. If you send us an email for, you know, through nursing sos, then that goes to our team. That actually doesn't come to me me, it goes to our team. So they, they are in there and I don't know how they do it actually. They, I think they, they're just in there constantly, basically. They're just in there constantly.

There is some time blocking there, but.

Yeah, but for like me, I'm pretty much all day. If I'm not on video live, if I'm not doing YouTube, if I'm not doing Instagram, I am pretty much writing is what I do. You know, I'm writing content, I'm writing blogs, I'm writing these videos, all these things. And I do not, I, when I get in my zone, I do not do anything else. I just write. Like you were talking to me the other day and I came into the office and you started talking to me and I was like, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. Like it's come. Like I have it, I have it. I just had to go to my computer and write because it was like, it's there and if I don't write it out, I will lose it. You know, like, don't talk to me. Let me get this, let me get this out.

So that's really the thing is. Yeah. Getting in the flow and not disrupting your flow. So you said that there's really two sides of it. Oh, do I let things pile up or do I do this as a kind of one offs? And I can see kind of the benefit in both ways, but really it's up to you individually on how you're able to best work with it. I'd say that ideally you would block them off so that you do handle them as a chunk of. So that you can focus on them as a chunk. But sometimes that's not realistic and I completely understand that. So I'd say try it both ways and see what works for you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay my friends, we will see you on Monday.

Monday.

Make sure you join the nursing SOS membership community. The price is going up on Friday, so be sure to join now. It's going to be awesome. I am so stoked. I am here for this. I'm here to help you through nursing school. Alrighty, my friends.

Talk to you later.

See you later.

Bye.

Bye. Bye.

Bye.