Nursing School ASK ME ANYTHING!!

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Nursing School show. I am Matthew Christina. We are here to talk nursing. Nursing school. Specifically nurse, not a nurse. We are here to help you get

Nurse, not a nurse.

Nurse, not a nurse. We are here to help you get through nursing school. Welcome. Thank you for joining. We are doing another ask me anything. We've had so much, so many questions popping in that we're going to answer them along with other answers. Other questions, what have you. Go ahead and pop down into the comments and ask your questions about nursing school, your thoughts, your struggles, your feelings, your feelings. We will talk about them. We are here to help. We have some questions from last time that we weren't able to get through. So I have those, but go ahead and pop in more questions and we will answer them as we go.

Hey, Charlotte. Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I don't know the song.

The sun is out this morning.

There you go.

Used to sing that to patients. Good morning. Good morning to you and you and

you and you and you. How are you guys on this fabulous Wednesday?

Okay, we have received some questions about finals. Now, finals. I'm going to do a deep dive into finals next week. So stay tuned for that. We're going to have a ask me anything finals topic day next week. There you go.

All right. So yes, there are a couple questions that came last time for finals. We will be talking about that in, in depth.

Yep, absolutely.

On the week after this, next week, which would be next week, Monday or

Wednesday, I'm not sure which one.

So we do our lives every Monday and Wednesday at 9 Pacific. Yep. We are here 12 Eastern, etc. Etc. Etc. Go ahead and hit the subscribe if you're on YouTube. Follow us. Hit the bell, all those good things. And you will be notified when we go live.

Boom.

All right, one question that has come up and we should dive into. Are you ready?

So ready.

All right. How do you use the Merc manual? I do not know what the Merc manual is, but how do you use it?

The Merc manual. Who has the Merc manual? Raise your hand. Raise your hand. Get your hands up. Throw your hands up. Throw your hands up if you have the Merc manual. The Merck manual is a deep dive into medical disorders. That's kind of how I think about it. So here is the two kinds of textbooks that you are going to want to have in nursing school. First, one, high level. You want a high level overview of things. And my favorite high level overview textbook is the made incredibly Easy series. So, so this one's Fluid Electrolyte. Let's just get all of our textbooks out, shall we? This is the nursing assessment, Pathophysiology. I'm sure I have more upstairs. This series is so, so good friends. So if you are struggling with just generally understanding what is happening in nursing school, this is the first step. This is where you're going to want to start if you wanted to do it out of a textbook. So two kinds of textbooks you should have in nursing school. High level overview. So this just explains very simply, very easily the topics for nursing school. Now the second resource that you're going to want to have is a more deeper level explanations. And that's what the Merck manual does. So the Merck manual is basically disorders, issues, diseases, patho stuff is kind of everything you need for nursing school in here in this bad boy. Signs and symptoms, things that you're going to want to assess for. It's more medically based rather than nursing based. So just be aware of that. But medical interventions, things like that. This is a very, it's a much deeper dive than resources like this, like the Made Incredibly Easy series. So it's going to dive into more like the chemical level, the cellular level of things, the patho and stuff. Whereas these like Pathophysiology Made Incredibly Easy is going to be more of a higher level overview. And it's important for you to know both. But I recommend that you start with a higher level one and then go deeper if you need to. So the Merck manual is divided up based on like. Like that was stroke, you know, it's, it's divided up based on problem. Now it is a physical book. I have the physical book. I had it in nursing school. They do have an online version, which I actually prefer. I think it's better. Not that it's better, but it's just easier, right? Anything online. Some things I really like to have like the Davis Drug guide I like to have physically, but for the Merck manual, I like it better online. Now when you go online, Merck manual, you can just Google it. When you go online there's two versions. There's a consumer version which is like patience and then there's a professional version. You want the professional version, so just tip there for you, make sure that like at the top it'll say you're reading the consumer version. Switch to professional version. And you want the professional version because it'll walk you through more of like the medical staff, how to, you know, all the things. So those are the two resources I recommend. High level overview, like the Made Incredibly Easy series and then a deeper dive like the Merck Manual. That is that. So the Merck Manual. How to use it was the question. Right? How do you use the Merck Manual? I would. Whatever you're studying in nursing school, you can just like google and like put like Mark Manual, like stroke Merck Manual, heart failure Merck Manual, you know, what have you. And then it'll pop up, it'll give you a bunch of information there. So honestly, super easy. That's how I'd use it. It's really helpful if you're doing like research papers or, you know, pretty much anything. Like if you're doing. If you have to do like a research paper on pathophysiology or, you know, even a care plan or something for your patient, you need to understand what's happening with them first. Pathophysiology wise. Right. And then you can fix the problem. So it can help you in both those aspects.

Okay. So it is really. Yeah, it's a giant book. So it is really more in depth based on. Which is different than those Made Easy.

Yep, absolutely.

So you'll need probably. Or you'd recommend both.

I recommend having both.

Okay.

I recommend having both. Now, if you are a nursing SOS member, we do those two things for you. So we give you high level of review. You guys know me. If You've watched our YouTube channel, if, if you are in the membership community, if you've been around for a while, you know how I teach, you know how we teach. And we teach it to you step by step. And so we do kind of both. We do high level overviews and then we do deeper dives. What you need to know for nursing school. So we kind of hit both. If you are a nursing SOS member, you have access to all those videos inside the membership community. So you don't really need those things. We do it for you. So there's that. Pretty cool.

Awesome. All right. And like you said, there is a online version.

Yes.

Of the Merc. Okay.

Of the Merc.

Of the Merc manual.

Can we just call it the Merc?

That's insane. I keep getting confused because there's a. Oh, no, that's up north. There's a building in my downtown that was like the Merc building.

Oh, really? So I keep getting confused, but Merc Manual.

Yeah, Merc manual.

The Mercury. We should call it the Merc.

The Merc building.

The Merc.

So there you go. All right, great. That is awesome. Charlotte do it. Charlotte. Charlotte, I love this question. How do you deal with post exam emotions?

Oh, good.

When talking through questions with peers?

Oh man, I didn't read your question, Charlotte, until Matthew just read it. And when he was reading the question how to deal with post exam emotions, the first thing going through my mind is don't talk to people. But then you added when talking with peers. So my number one tip for you is don't talk to people. Just.

That's my tip as an introvert. Just don't talk to anyone.

Don't talk to people. So, okay, here's kind of the thing. There's. There's no point, right? There's no point in talking to other people other than the emotional aspect, right? What is, what is the benefit to you? Let's think about this, friend. What is the benefit to you talking to students after an exam? They're either going to tell you you got those questions wrong or they're going to tell you you got them right. And you're really hoping that you can compare your answers to your peers and validate that you got those answers right or you're comparing your grade to other people, trying to make yourself feel better, right? So it's all emotional. Like there's nothing like actually tangible, beneficial to your grade about talking to peers right? Now this is different from an instructor though. Well, we always recommend, Charlotte, I know you've heard me say this about a thousand times. Always, always, always talk to your instructor after your exam. Whether you got a 98 on your exam, whether you got a 68 on your exam, talk to your instructors after your exam. Walk through the questions item by item, question by question. Make sure you know why exactly you got questions right and why you got questions wrong. So, so important whether or not you got a 58 on an exam or a 98 like ism. So make sure that anytime you are talking to your instructor now, like I said, you, you probably should stay away from your peers. Another one of my tips that I talk about a lot is when you are take, going in to take a nursing school exam, like in class, in person, I would highly recommend showing up on time, right on time or slightly late for that exact reason. You don't want the emotion of the room to get you worked up. Like you guys know, you know you take a nursing school exam in class, like in person, you go, you go. And everyone's like, you could just what do they say? Like you can cut it with a knife. Like the, like the tension, the tension and care of the room, right? Like, it's just. It is very hyped up, very anxious, very stressed oftentimes. And you just don't want that before an exam. Right. So when you're going to take your nursing school exam, show up right on time or slightly late so that you don't get worked up. Yeah, makes sense.

I like that. First this, and then we'll circle back there. There was a comment that I wanted to make, too, about just talking to your PE because the introvert that I am. Yeah, I like that answer. Not talking to your peers, but more on that in a little bit. I can't read that name. Sorry. Talking about the. Going to talk to your professor. This person just said that my professor doesn't do that and that that's okay. Just try reach out and communicate that you do want to talk through. Through your exam with them to. To learn more. Be open about it. And really, the side effect of that is that your professor now knows that you want to learn and that you're open to learning and you're open to doing the work. So that's a little side effect. Even if they don't allow you to do that or they don't do that also, you might not know. Maybe it's not standard that they do that, but you won't know unless you try. If you tried, then great. And if they still don't do that, that's still fine. There are other things that you can do to help review your finals. But as far as talking with people, really the best person to talk to about your exam is your teacher, because they're the ones that can actually give you feedback on what you're doing and what's the best way to change things around for the next time. So going back to talking with peers, I totally get that. And that happens a lot, right? Like, right after you finish your exam and you leave your room, hey, what did you get on number 13? Or what'd you get on number 10? Or. Oh, man, that one question was really hard. What did you get? And just. It's kind of a bonding experience, and it's. It is kind of validation. Okay, I did this. What did you do? And I think the. The key thing to remember what Christina was talking about is both before and after exam is what do you have that's in your control? And. And that's. We talk a lot about mindset. We talk a lot about just being in control of what you're in control of and recognizing the difference. So what are you in control of? As soon as you leave that exam room, all of your answers, that's it for your answers. So you do not have any control over that. And you can feel bad or you can feel good about that, but we've talked about this before, those feelings are your own, and you can choose to feel however you want to feel. So talking with peers, I don't know, how does it make you feel? Does it make you feel, oh, I got all these wrong, or does it make you feel validated? And is that helpful? I don't know if that is helpful or not, but. But the ultimate thing to remember is what is in your control. And once you leave that exam room, just leave it all there. As long as you tried your best, as long as you studied your best, and that's really the key thing, is being honest with yourself. Did you do everything you could do? Did you do 100% of what you could do and left it all on the table? And left? Because at that point in time, no matter how you did, at least you are confident with yourself that, you know what, I did my best, I tried my hardest. Whatever the outcome, I'll learn from it and I'll do, I'll put those into effect for the next exam. But just talking to people, just to talk to people or just to feel validated, it might feel good, but is it actually helpful? And that's something to just really dive into. And a lot of it is just mindset, and a lot of that is knowing what you can control and what you can't and putting all of it on the table during your exam. So. So you can walk out of the room and say, you know what? I did it, I did my best. Without feeling that, that doubt of, oh, if I would have studied for an extra hour, would I have changed my answer? No. Just put a hundred percent of your effort in at the beginning and you leave it all there. And when you walk out, that's it.

My Brooke Castillo, my life coach, she, oh, she has this phrase, have your own back. Have your own back. Whatever happened in the past, have your own back with that. Decisions you made, things you did, what have you, it's in the past, you can't change it, but have your own back, you can change how you feel about yourself moving forward. So if you take an exam and you, like Matthew said, leave it all on the table, leave it all on the court, you know, study your best, do your best, and then afterwards, have your own back with that, you know, realize, I did my best, I tried my best, I'm going to learn from exactly like Matthew said and move on. But have your own back. I love that. Now, I wanted to mention one other thing. Dane Tulu Am I saying that right? Dan to Lou on Instagram. My professor doesn't do that. So that's what we were just saying. If your professor doesn't allow you to go through your exam item by item or question by question after your exam, that that's fine. What I want you to go through. I'm not entirely sure exactly what that means. My professor doesn't do that. Do what? What does your professor not do? Do they not meet with you at all? Do they not respond to your emails or your, you know, do they not set meetings with you? Like what don't they do? If you can clarify that? Because what I would want you to do, even if they don't allow you to go through your exams question by question after you take your exams, what I want you to do is write out your entire study process. How do you study step by step? Write it all out. Take that to them and show them, okay, here's how I'm studying. What do you see that you would change? Is there anything that I am doing that you would recommend that I change, that I can do better? And another great question that we've talked about a lot is that you can ask your instructor, if you were taking your class, how would you study? If you are taking. So you're asking this of your instructor, right? So if Matthew's my instructor, I say, if you're taking your class, if you're in this class, how would you study? It's a great question to ask. So that's what I would really recommend. I know that some schools don't allow you to go through your questions afterwards, including if you're like a ATI or Hussey program. Oftentimes they won't. But if you know, some schools will. So always, always ask. And then even if they don't, it's totally fine. Just go through your study process with them. Exactly like Matthew said, it shows them that you care. It shows them that you're not going to give up, that you want to be. There you go.

Yeah. Moving on a little bit to Shell. This is kind of an extension of that, but going past that on how you actually did in your exam. So Shell, please give me some advice on how to move on. Because I failed and not just an exam, the NCLEX RN for the first time. I gave all my effort into it, but I think I struggle with strategies. I'm 11 years out of school plus full time mom with 2 kids. So congratulations on getting through that and with all that's on your plate and it's an amazing thing that you did to go through that. And yeah, your question now what happens now? How to move on because I failed. That was on YouTube.

Is that on YouTube today or was that from before? Okay Shell. Okay Shell, are you on? I have a couple of follow up questions that's going to kind of drive my answer for you. Did you just take the NCLEX? Did you graduate school and now it's been 11 years and now you're just taking the NCLEX and failed it or did you take the NCLEX 11 years ago and fail it and not try again? Tell me which camp you fall into or if it's something different. I need some clarification because that's going to drive my answer to you. Dane. Sorry, I am not going to get this Instagram handle. They don't go through the exam questions by question or they don't go through exam. Go through the exam question by question. That's totally fine. If your instructor doesn't go through your exam question by question. Totally fine. Just like I said, go through your study process with them.

Yeah. So you want to dig into the strategies and hopefully they can give you some insight on strategies on how you're studying and, and what to study and what not to study as well.

So absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. Shell, if you can just clarify that question, we're going to move on and then I will come back. Yeah, definitely that about talking about what happens, what do you do if you fail the nclex and actually let's talk about just real quick, what happens if you fail an exam?

Yeah.

Which is exactly what we were just talking about. You want to really, you want to meet with your instructor right away, you know, walk through your study process with them, go through the exam item by item or question by question. If they allow it. If they don't, it's totally fine. Now one thing that I really don't want you to fall into is this pattern of I failed or I didn't do as well as I wanted to or I didn't do as well as I thought I could have or you know, was going to. And then you kind of find yourself in this spiral of negativity and you know, I can't do it and it's too hard and all these things. Right. Like all the thoughts that go through our brain if we don't meet our own expectations, if you don't Meet your own expectations. What happens? Oftentimes you start to doubt yourself, right? And then if you start to doubt yourself, then you're not going to study as well for the next exam. And then if you don't study as well for the next exam, it's gonna happen the same thing. You're not gonna do as well on the next exam. So it's like this self fulfilling prophecy. It's really sabotaging your own success because you, you don't do well on an exam and then you start to doubt your ability, you doubt yourself. So you don't study and then you don't do as well on the next exam. It's really, it's like this downward spiral, you know. So what's most important for you to do if you find yourself in that position is to a first off, notice it. You have to notice it. We talked about this on what day is this? Today's Wednesday. We talked about this on Monday where you have to notice what you're doing, you have to notice what you are thinking and then once you notice it, you can change it. Like I said, I noticed recently with me just over the past, I would say about month few weeks that I have been noticing in myself when I get anxious or stressed, I eat. And that was not something that I noticed in myself before a month ago. I never noticed that before. Wait, I am feeling stressed, I'm feeling anxious and then I go eat something. That was kind of my release and I didn't notice that. I didn't notice that that was happening so I couldn't change it. But now, now that I noticed that, I am now actively working on changing that. I am actively working on changing that because I noticed it. But you can't change something you don't notice. So friends, we've got a lot of people saying that yes, you're in that same position. You know, that's exactly what's happening to you right now. You didn't do well on an exam, you're doubting yourself so you're not studying. If you find yourself there, like really do a, you know, really do an honest self assessment and see if that's you, if that's what you're falling into now. But you have to notice it first and then you can change it. So then you can start noticing those thoughts, right? Notice when you feel doubtful, notice when you think you're going to fail or you know, any thoughts that you have that are driving you to not study and flip the script. You know what, what is telling you that you can't pass your exam. What is it like? Why don't you believe that you can? I believe that you can. So why don't you? And another kind of thought experiment that I really love and have taught a lot on, using myself as an example, if you, if you have your exam coming up, which you do, so your next exam, if you are doubting your ability to do it, I want you to ask yourself, one of your peers, would you doubt one of your peers ability to do that exam and to pass that exam? And if the answer is no, then why are you doubting yourself? If you would be totally confident in one of your friends passing your next exam, one of your peers in your class passing the next exam, if you're totally confident in their ability, why are you not confident in your ability to do it? Right. Would you be confident in my ability to pass your exam? I would. Why wouldn't you be confident in your ability to pass your exam? Kind of a fun thought experiment. It's very easy to believe that other people are capable of more than we are. Such a lie friends, you are capable of so much more than you realize. You have got this. You have got this. Do not give up on yourself. It is so worth it to fight through this. It is so, so worth it. You just gotta, you just got to do it. You just got to do and keep going and don't quit. But you are, make no mistake, if you don't study for your next exam, that is quitting on yourself. So don't quit on yourself. Don't do it. Anything to add?

Yeah, I just think, yeah, what we were talking about a little earlier is just put everything out there, put 100% of your effort on the table, do all of the work, be confident that you did do everything that you could do. So no matter what happens, you feel confident that I did my best. You don't have that lingering feeling of, oh, if I just did this or if I just did that. But if you're, if you just go 100%, then you know, okay, I did 100%. What else can we tweak here and there? But it has nothing to do with something that you did not do. You just did 100%. So, yeah, I think that that's all great. And yeah, do not give up. Shel got back. She said, I took it last September 30, 2020. You then did message and then retract it. Are you part of our membership community? Because that has some resources there and we can kind of go through some general things right now, but I know we're kind of live and might have additional questions that will help flesh it out. So maybe also reach out on our tutor form with additional details as well or email us so that we can, we can get your answer more in depth.

So it sounds like Shel, you took your. So this goes back to the question. If you're just joining us, Shell had a question a few minutes ago. Please give me some advice on how to move on because I failed the NCLEX RN for the first time. I gave it all my effort and I think I struggle with strategies. I'm 11 years out of school plus a full time mom with two kids. And then I just needed a little clarification. She said she took it last September. So totally fine. It's. It really actually goes back to what we've been talking about a lot. So you just took it this last September. So Shell, for you, it sounds like you've been out of school for 11 years. Full time mom, two kids. That's awesome. First off, awesome. It's a lot to do in 11 years, right? I've got two kids. I know. Trust me. I really don't want you to think that you can't do this because you can. If you took the nclex, I want to know, like I said, a little more information. Did you take an NCLEX prep program? Did you. What resources did you use? You know, all of those things. I would look into an NCLEX prep program. Something like Kaplan Believe has one. The Hearst review I've heard is really good. We have a local one that is super great. Depending on where you live, you can look up, you know, local nurses that might teach a NCLEX program to help you, you know, things like that. I would. If you've been out of school for 11 years, I would highly recommend that you take an NCLEX prep program. I would highly recommend that.

So awesome. If you have any more questions. Yeah, definitely email us. And. And. Oh, okay. Shell. Sweet. October to December 29th, enrolled in Nursing SOS. Hooray. Study for the NCLEX.

So submit tutor form because you're in the membership community. Submit a tutor form, walk through with us what you're struggling with and let us help you. Okay. Let us help you with that. I was also going to say something else about the nclex. Oh yes, right. If you not you shall anybody else. If you have not taken the NCLEX yet and, and you're like just graduating nursing school and taking it. Let's see I took the NCLEX. I think I was 10 weeks. No, 13. So, man, it was a few months after I graduated, I took it. I think I was 10 weeks postpartum. So like 12 weeks. Do the math. 12 weeks after, after nursing school. I had baby right after nursing school. Then I think I was 10 weeks postpartum when I took the NCLEX. And so if that's you, if you're going to take the NCLEX right after school, I would not necessarily recommend an NCLEX prep program for you because NCLEX prep is kind of what you do all through nursing school. I honestly wouldn't worry about it too much. That's just me. But if you want to, that's totally fine. But you know, that's kind of what you do all through nursing school. But if you're struggling and really want the help and just like to know that you're going to pass, an NCLEX prep program would help. Here you go.

Awesome. For those just joining welcome to Nursing School show, I'm Kristen. We are talking nursing school topics. Ask us anything about nursing. I am Matthew. I will not be answering the nursing related questions. That would be Christina because she's a nurse. But yeah, we've gotten some really great questions so far and we'll go through more. Angela, a little earlier asked. I just can't read for the life of me. Is there any way I can pull the important stuff out and how? I'm online. This is my first semester and I hate nursing. So far. I feel like my professors are not teaching and they are not very helpful. Help.

Angelina, why do you hate nursing? I'm just super curious. What is it about nursing that you do not like? Tell me. Angelina, I'm gonna latch onto that because I don't, I don't know. I mean, I, I, I am, I don't know if I can help you if you really hate nursing and just don't want to do it. You know, there are people who don't want to be a nurse. I have known several students that went to nursing school who decided for a semester that's not for them. And I, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. I think it's great. Nursing is not for everybody. So let me know. Do you hate nursing because you genuinely hate nursing and don't want to do it? Or, you know, are you just in nursing school because everyone told you to go to nursing school and you listened? You know, I don't know. Or are you in here and it just kind of stinks right now. And you love it. You really love it, but it just kind of stinks. So tell us. Give us a little clarification.

Yeah. So, yeah. Is it just that and something that we talk about a lot is, again, mindset, knowing yourself, Know thyself, know thyself. And. Yeah. Is it really. Is. Is that feeling just a feeling in the moment? Are you just frustrated with what you said later that your professors are not teaching, or you feel like they're not teaching and you feel like they're not being helpful? So are those struggles really frustrating to you and you're just, like, throwing up your hands? So is it that or is it some really deep other thing, other reason that, like, you know what? I really didn't want to do this, but my parents made me, or you know what? Everyone says to do this, so I'm going to do it. What. What is that? What is going on behind the scenes there? So I just like to really dive into that a little bit more. All right.

All righty. So we've got Facebook questions that. Aaron, I know you've been popping in here. Sorry, you guys on Facebook, it's kind of hard to read, so I don't know if you're. What do you want the Facebook questions? I don't know.

They're here.

Aaron, you just said just keeps swimming. That is my motto.

What. What did you want to.

Well, I don't know. I just haven't been. They're kind of hard to read.

Yeah, I've been capturing them.

Sweet.

Okay.

All right, let's do it.

Let me see. So did you want to talk about this one?

Let's do a study. I want to keep jamming on the study tips. The reading is more genuine, general. Some questions are very specific. For example, procedural. What should the nurse do next? So that's a priority question. Anything that you. Any nursing exam question that has. What's your initial action? What's your first action? What's. You know, that's a priority question. We call it a priority priority question. Priority nursing action question. You might hear called priority question. So you need to do three things. Keep the three things in mind. The first one is the ABCs. Airway breathing and circulation. Airway breathing, Circulation. Your patient's airway must be clear. They must be breathing, and their blood must be circulating. If one of those three things isn't happening, that's a problem. Right. Second, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So we start with physiological needs first, which is like airway, breathing, circulation. It's kind of the ABCs kind of the same thing. ABC Airway, breathing, circulation. And then the next one in Maslow's hierarchy is like safety needs and you get 11 belonging needs and self esteem and self actualization needs. So it goes up the tier, it goes up the hierarchy. So you have to make sure to solve the foundational ones first. So if you are presented with a nursing priority action question, like what would you do first? What is the nurse's initial response? Those things make sure that you are making sure that their airway is clear, they are breathing, their blood is circulating. And then so ABC's Mousel's hierarchy of needs, like I said, those physiological needs first and then the nursing process. The nursing process is ADPY or add opi Assessment, diagnosis, outcome identification. If your school uses the okay, outcome identification, Planning, implementation and evaluation. So what you're going to want to latch on with this is that assessment always comes first. Always assess your patient first and then you can move on to the other steps. Always assess your patient first. Got to plan their diagnosis. Nursing diagnosis goals, implement it, evaluate, which is basically another assessment. There you go. Does that make sense? And now priority nursing questions. We have several videos on on that. Let's see Pulling them out of my mind. Go to YouTube Nursing SOS. Go to YouTube, Search Nursing SOS ABC Search Nursing SOS ADPY Search Nursing SOS Maslow's hierarchy because we have all three of those. And then in the membership community we have a whole video on priority nursing action in the fundamentals course. So if you're a nursing SSLS member, any you guys out there, Nursing SOS member, check that out.

Awesome.

Did I miss anything?

Nope.

Okay.

All right, so I'm just going to read Chelsea your comment verbatim and then we can dive into it a little bit just because it's along and it's on Facebook and I can read it. Hey guys. So last time I hopped on here, you really got me changing my mentality and approaching my program with a positive. I will do my this mindset. I study and applying myself so much and go into it so positively. I change. I change my answers despite my intuition and so frustrating. So I'm assuming like in exams and things. I have three exams tomorrow and it's sink or swim. Looks like either Nicole or Marilyn is on either hello, hello or Marilyn. I don't, I don't know. Maybe just some study advice. I spend an unhealthy amount of time studying like eight to ten hours a day. No joke.

Okay. So Chelsea, it sounds like you're for all of you. If you find yourself studying all day, every day, all day, every day, there is something wrong. You do not need to be studying all day, every day in nursing school. That is not effective. You need to have a break. You need time to process, you need to eat, you need to sleep. You know, you need to take care of yourself. So if you find yourself running yourself to the ground, studying, reading a textbook all day, every day, there is something wrong. Not wrong. I mean, nothing wrong with you, just wrong with how you're studying. It could be better. So underneath all my textbooks, the nursing school study system walks you through, step by step, how to study in nursing school. There you go. Nursing schoolofsuccess.com study system. And so when you learn how to study and focus on studying the right things, what happens is you start spending focused study time. And when I say focus, I really mean focused, focused study time, studying the right things and you will do better on your exam and you will have more free time rather than what often happens. What a lot of us do is that we just try to study everything. We try to learn everything for our exam, we dilute what we're learning, we try to know everything before the exam, and we end up knowing a little bit about a lot of things, but not enough about the things that they actually test you on, right? So if you try to read every single thing in the book, it's not going to work very well for you. Follow the tips, follow the steps. In this study system, you will do a lot better on your exam. So high level, here's how we do it. Make sure that you are studying the things that your professors talk about in class. Read the sections of the book that your professors talk about in class. Whether it's in class, in person or in class, online, what have you, PowerPoints, modules, outlines, lectures, those things. Make sure you're focusing on studying those things that your professors talk about in class. And then above that, four main things that you're going to focus on. Four main things, Pathophysiology or physiology, signs and symptoms, nursing assessment or nursing interventions. Four things, patho signs and symptoms, nursing assessment and nursing interventions. Those are the four key things you have to know for nursing school. Whether it's about fluid and electrolytes, whether it's a med surg disorder, whether it's OB disorders, pediatric disorders. Those are the four things that you have to know. Pathophysiology, signs and symptoms. So what's the patho? What's the underlying problem? What are we Trying to solve what are the signs and symptoms that the patient might present with? What's the nursing assessment? What are you going to assess for? What are the nursing interventions that you're going to do to help fix it? Four things, Patho signs and symptoms, nursing assessment and nursing interventions. We walk you through that step by step into the nursing school study system. So nursing School of success.com forward/study system. Boom. Sweet. So that was helpful.

Just a follow up. She was just saying, I, I watch all your videos that are so helpful. I just worry about retaining, so retaining the information. So I think that just goes into practice and really a lot of it is the general strategies and learning to critically think. Because once you have the strategies in place and in critical thinking in place, no matter what the situation, you can kind of adjust your thinking to a specific situation and basically delve through the strategies that way instead of having to just do rote memorization for every single little thing. So that's something that you just want to get at, is beyond the rote memorization into critically thinking about nursing topics in general using that framework. So using the framework out and then diving into it that way. Yeah, overstudying is definitely a thing and definitely you need, you need rest and sleep to process things and move things from your short memory into your long term memory. So all that worrying and stress and overstudying and not sleeping enough, that does have an effect on your studying as well. So just want to be on the lookout for that for sure.

And if you're finding yourself not being able to retain the information like you said, that really tells me that you are not being as efficient studying as I would like you to be be and as you probably want to be. Because if you're not retaining the information, that tells me that you're not actually learning it. You might just be reading for the sake of reading, right? You might just be studying for the sake of studying. Reading words on a page, but not actually applying it or thinking about it or actually learning it. Because if you can't remember it, you're probably just reading for the sake of reading, which is not efficient. Right?

So this has popped up in our membership community private Facebook group a lot that I noticed just when scrolling through. And Chelsea, you've mentioned this a couple times and I don't think we've ever really talked about it or what your opinion is on it because I have an opinion and I think it is more, I think it is more opinion based. But I'm curious, I'm curious what Your thoughts are in this. When you go to an exam, the first answer you put and then you go back through and review and changing your answers. There's been some lively discussion on, on whether to stick with your first answer or to. Or if it's second guessing and you change it and then you find out that you got it wrong. So I'm curious what your opinion is on that, Chelsea, I know that you brought it up and there's a lot of people on our membership site and a couple more people on here that are in membership site. Hello. Do you guys have any opinion on this? When you're taking an exam, do you stick with your first answer and just not review it? Do you go back and review it and change it, second guess yourself, or do you feel bad when you do change it and get it wrong? All those things that come together.

So tell us in the chat, do you change your answers or not? Yes, tell us in the chat. Okay, so here's my opinion, which is by no means the, you know, anything to write home about really, or to, you know, do or apply to your own life. But I, my opinion is that this could go a couple of ways. And, and I feel like if we were actually to examine nursing school exams, the initial questions that you put, and then if you go back and change the answers, I would honestly venture to guess that a lot of the ones you changed are correct and then you

change it too wrong to be wrong or what?

That the ones that you changed, a lot of them, you may have changed them to the right answer, but then some of them, perhaps a lot you may have changed to the wrong answer. So I would almost venture to guess that we oftentimes think about and ruminate on the ones that were correct, but we change to the wrong answer and we disregard the ones that were wrong and we changed to the correct one. Is that what you were gonna say? I feel like that's kind of what you're.

That's what I was thinking, along with a couple other things.

We're usually on the same page about things. We're basically the same.

So, Barbara, you're saying o never change your answers. And I think that comes a lot out of that. We, we tend to stick. What sticks in our mind is the negative things. Right? So a lot of the things, oh, I failed this exam, you don't remember that you passed all the exams up until now. So. All right, but you, you tend to think and ruminate on those negative things. And so let's say you, you have an exam that has however many 20 questions and you change 10 of them, five you change to the right answer and five you change to the wrong answer. You're going to remember the ones that you change to the wrong answer, not the ones that you change to the right answer. So whether it all comes out in a wash and it's actually equal, I don't know. I think it kind of depends. Also I think it's a very individual thing too. So it's not something that we have a very clear cut answer. Never change your answer or always change your answer because no one, yeah, no one says that. No one says, okay, answer all the questions and go back and change all of them. No one says that. So it's, it's kind of weird our thought process on that. But it's a very individualized thing because I know myself, there's that gut feeling. People have this gut feeling and that's what they also associate with. The very first answer is usually my writing answer answer. It could be right, it could be wrong. It depends. It depends on a bunch of things. But I'm a gut feeler. So I've, I've always thought that I should not change my answers. But I do know when I do change my answers, I do it for, for a very specific reason. So. But it is for yourself too. If you're spending like all of your time really reviewing a question and making sure that the first time you make your answer that's. That that's your answer, then fine. I know other people that kind of read through all the questions first if they can and just kind of say this is what I think it is and then go through it all and then go through it again. And obviously if you go through there, it's. You might be changing things. If you're not fully thinking, if you're not reading the whole question, if you're just kind of skimming, then chances are likely that you'll change your answer that way. So it just depends on how you take a test, what's available to you. Someone on YouTube said that I can't even change my answers on the computer. So sometimes that's not even an option for you. So a lot of these things play together. But as far as the underlying question, never change your answers or go ahead and change your answers. I think it is almost down to personal preference. And just remember to that we do stick that those negative answers, the ones that we get wrong do really stick out to you.

So I'd be curious the next time you take an exam, you know Let us know. Did you find yourself changing answers? But also keep in mind what answers you changed, and I want you to think about the answers that you changed that ended up being correct. Like, that ended up being like, the one that you changed it to. The answer you changed it to is now correct when it was originally wrong, and you changed your answer to the correct one. Because I bet that happens for me. For me, I, I, that was often me. So I, I did have the experience of when I would change an answer, and then it ended up being, you know, correct the first time, and then I changed it to the wrong one. I did have that experience, but for me, I'm, you know, just being really careful. Like, no, I'm, I'm still, still gonna go with this answer. Or no, I'm pretty sure now that I've kind of had time to process it and sit here and. Because when you get to a nursing school exam, you sit down to take it, you are, like, hyped up. I mean, sometimes you can get, it's like, you know, it takes you a little while to come off that. That's so like five or ten minutes you sit down to take your exam, you know, give yourself five, ten minutes, you know, you know, keep answering questions. But, you know, it might take a few minutes for you to kind of, okay, calm down and kind of settle into the exam. And then for me, that's when I would, you know, go back, you know, look at, you know, the first 10 questions that I answered, make sure that I'm still cool with those answers. Because you kind of know, you're kind of emotional, more emotional when you sit down to take an exam for that first, you know, 10ish minutes. I could see it going both ways for sure. Charlotte. Something that I also wanted to mention that I completely forgot to mention when we were talking about it is when, Charlotte, your question. Does anyone else have the same issue that you don't remember the question all the time after you finished an exam? So if you don't remember the questions. Yeah. So totally have that problem. Because you're like, brain wiped, right? Like, you're brain is totally toast, you know, after an exam, like, you're just beat. So, but something that I wanted to mention at, like, earlier that I did not make sure that you check with your school's policy about talking about exam questions with your peers from our school. We were not allowed to. So I would venture to guess that for a lot of schools out there, you're not allowed to talk about the exam questions. You're not allowed to write them down, you know, makes sense. You don't want to cheat.

Right.

So just know your school's policy around that, you know, before you know. You don't want to like go comparing questions and stuff with your, with your peers if it's not allowed. So just that. Okay, little disclaimer there.

Yeah. So yeah, I think, I think it really is independent. So I think whatever you do, all the studying that you did up until that point will help you get the answers. So again, it goes back to what we've been talking about all day is just put 100% of your effort in and, and just do your best.

Have your own back.

Yep.

Have your own back about it for sure. A lot of people are saying always stick with the first answer.

A lot of people say that. I hear that a lot.

I do too. And I'm not sure I agree with.

I'm not sure if I agree with it. Just to throw a wrench into things. If people have some spare time for spare reading, you can go ahead and read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. We've just been talking about that book. Really good book. But it talks about. The specific example it talks about is baseball and a professional baseball player, or even not a professional baseball player. When someone pitches you a ball and the. The batter hits the ball from an outside perspective, that's all you see is the ball getting thrown and the. The batter hitting it. But what you don't see is all the little micro things that go on between the split second. I mean that ball is coming at him at 100 plus miles per hour. All the little micro decisions that he makes that happen on the fly automatically because of all the practice, because of all lack of better term, all the studying he did. He doesn't think about it that he needs to put his bat exactly at this angle and, and hit exactly this way in order to hit the ball. It just all comes together. And that comes from all of the studying and preparation that he did before up until that point. It's the kind of same thing with nursing school and studying in general. That's what we want to get it to that kind of second nature feeling for you. And you won't get that first exam, second exam. You might not even get through it until beyond nursing school at some point sometimes. But that's really what you want to get to is that really it's happening like that because it is so second nature to you that you're not really thinking about why you did something, but you just know it's the right thing to do because it's so ingrained. And sometimes that's why, where people have that idea of a gut feeling and that's really what the technical thing is about. The gut feeling is. It's everything unconscious that is coming together and saying, this is my gut feeling. I don't know why, but this is the answer. The problem with that is through nursing school and if you don't have that ingrained full study and really ingrained in that like a professional baseball player, your gut may be wrong. You might have. You might have a gut feeling that is not right. So that's something to, to be aware of when you're just relying totally on your gut that makes sense and not

having the background to back it up. So make sure that when you're studying that you're actually spending time not just reading the textbook, but applying the information.

Yeah, that's. That's what we talk about. Critical thinking.

Yeah.

Beyond the textbooks and beyond that is

connect the dots between things.

Yeah.

Make sure that you are connecting the dots. Now, critical thinking. We do have a free critical thinking teacher for you. Nursing schoolofsuccess.com critical thinking.

Yeah.

Nursing schoolofsuccess.com Critical thinking. There you go. A lot of students are saying, and my school was the same way. So this out here, you, when you take an exam, you can't go back. So we had some exams that were that way. Those mimic the NCLEX more. Because on the nclex, can't go back. If I remember right, I'm pretty sure can't go back. No, you can't go back on the nclex. Like, I had to think back for a minute. No, you cannot go back on the nclex. So nursing schools will make that. If you're in like a hesi ATI program, what have you, most likely they're not going to let you. It's like one question at a time. When you click, that next button is gone. You can't go back. So you know, things like that. You just have to do your best. Like, there's no two ways around it. Right. You have don't beat yourself up. Is that going to help you?

No.

If you beat yourself up after your exam and tell yourself, ugh, I stink at life, I'm a failure. I'm never gonna pass nursing school. Like, that's not helpful for you, right? No, the answer is no, it's not helpful. Thank you, Barbara. Nope, not helpful.

I think that's the. I think that's the quote of the day is have your own back.

Have your own back.

Have your own.

Thank you. Brooke Castillo from the school. There you go. I think that question's for you from Charlotte.

Oh, do you listen to audible? Audible. If so, what books do you listen to? Yes, we have audible, and yes, we do listen to a lot of books.

Yeah, we listen to a lot of.

We do listen to.

So speaking of Malcolm Gladwell, I just read David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. So good. So good. My favorite books. I'm going through the Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel. That is one I'm currently reading. And then the Case for Christ. I read that book every year. I love that book. Top. One of my top favorites. So those are the two most recent ones that I have read. So Case for Christ, Malcolm Gladwell's Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath. And then. And then Case for Creator by Lee Strabel. Again, Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath is about underdogs and how underdogs in society find success and why being an underdog can actually help you be successful. So oftentimes we have this perception of people who are successful at things, that they were born that way or they have, you know, they have some examples, extra talents or what have you that, like, made them successful. Whereas that book is talking, saying, like, no, that's actually not the case. And it's just, it's a great book. So I totally would recommend that if you are struggling in nursing school and not sure which way is up. I also, I don't know, I don't know if I would fully recommend this book. Um, but I did read, um, Can't Hurt Me about, I want to say, 70% of the way through Can't Hurt Me. Do you remember me listen to that book? It's called Can't Hurt Me. It's by David Goggins.

Oh, yeah.

And I really loved it. But the thing is, is that there is a lot of curse words in that book. And I, I, I honestly just, I couldn't get through the full thing because that's not, I'm not around that, you know, I don't know. It just, it wasn't, it wasn't for me, which is totally fine. You know, it's, it might be your favorite book ever. And I really loved the book. It's called Can't Hurt Me. He is a Navy seal. He's got, like, so many. It was basically, it's his life story. About coming from nothing, abusive home. Like the, like one of the worst stories of growing up and then becoming, you know, a Navy Seal. Everything, you know, everything that he's achieved in life is just. It's incredible, like what he did. And it's super motivational, super inspiring. It. I would say it's. It's one of my, one of my favorite stories. It was just. It was kind of hard to listen to for me personally, you know. No, perfect. Yeah. Your wife, the, the can't hurt me. Charlotte. Yeah, it's so good. I really. Or Case for Christ. Tell me which one. Yeah, yeah, but Case for Christ is great. Yeah. Barbara. I love that book. I listen to it every year.

Yeah, those are all kind of non fiction and we do read a lot of non fiction books.

Yeah. Oh yeah, those are all nonfiction.

I really like there, There are a lot of ones that, that I've read too. A lot of self improvement things, things like that.

We are very much in that space.

I've mentioned Rory Vaden a lot. His Take the Stairs book is really, really good. Procrastinate on purpose, funny title, but that's another really good book. And then what? Yeah, there's just a lot that we read. But also in addition to that, I know you guys are in nursing school if you need to kind of get away from all the non fiction, all like the, the hard info books. Fiction books are a good way of kind of relaxing and kind of just taking a step back from everything nonfiction. So I do listen to fantasy books. Probably our favorite author is Brandon Sanderson. All his sci fi fiction books. Fantasy books are really good.

We really like. I really liked. I haven't read a ton of his books, but Matthew showed me Skyward, which I really liked. Skyward and Starlight Starsight.

Yeah.

Star Sight Skyward is the first one and then Starsight's the second one and then the Rithmatist I thought was really good. And that's more of a kids book, isn't it? Not kids book, but like youth, like teen. I love teenage fiction novels, to be honest, because they're more light hearted. I think I. I think they're more light hearted.

I can see that.

You know, they tend to be. Well, okay, I don't know what like teenage books there are in the world, but I. The ones that I read tend to be more wholesome than a lot of the adult books that you see around. So I like the teenage books. I think they're fun. Yeah, like, like teenage romance novels I love. I think it's great. All right.

So I think, though, the comments are all very good, reading is a great way of spending some free time. If you do have any free time. If you do not have audible, check out your library, because a lot of library now, our library has an app that you can download, and they even have audio books that you can. You can borrow. So I've actually been doing a lot of that as well. So if you do not have audible or need to find a book to listen to, go ahead and check that out too.

Not even books, though. If you're in nursing school, if you really want to read a book, that's awesome. But three things that I would recommend for you. Really? Three things. The first one is the Daily Audio Bible, which I really like. Daily Audio Bible. It's just, you know, one day, every day, 15 minutes, and you go through the Bible in a year. Daily Audio Bible. Check out Brooke Castillo's podcast, Brooke Castillo with the Life Coach School. Burke Castillo, the Life Coach School podcast. Check it out. I cannot recommend that enough. So. Daily Audio Bible podcast, Brooke Castillo at the Life Coach School podcast, Dave Ramsey podcast. Dave Ramsey. I listened a lot to that in nursing school. We've been listening for Dave Ramsey since I was a little kid, you know, But I find him super motivational and kind of a kick in the butt. So there you go. I really found that very inspiring and motivational to get me through nursing school, even though it often has nothing to do with nursing in school, but just like life in general, he talks about. So I really, I really like Dave Ramsey and Burke Castillo, obviously, because I talk about her all the time, but totally Brick Castillo. Check it out. Check it out.

All right, well, I think that is it for now. We've gotten a lot of questions that we were not able to go through, so I have them all here. And we will probably circle around, do a couple more AMAs sprinkled around in there with some other topics this coming week. Like Christina said, next week we'll be talking about finals. So if you have not yet, Mondays and Wednesdays, we have our lives. Go ahead. If you're on YouTube, subscribe. Hit the bell so you are notified. Gabs, you had a question about how to get the most out of clinicals. Kayla had clinical questions, and moonlight had a question about strategies for before you start nursing school. So those are definitely ones that I want to touch on. So we weren't able to get to those, but we will, along with a couple other ones for next week. So go ahead, subscribe. Hit the bell if you have not. We have it Monday, Wednesdays, 9am Pacific, noon Eastern, etc. Etc.

Yes.

Yeah.

Anything else, Charlotte? I would love to start a podcast,

Food for Thought.

That's food for thought.

Food for Thought.

I like talking, so I don't see why not. But YouTube has kind of been our thing because live video for me is just like my favorite thing of all time ever. So we'll see.

Eventually.

I'll start a podcast.

We will see.

All right, friends. All right. We'll see you on Monday at 9am Pacific Standard Time, 12pm Eastern. Have a fantastic rest of your week.

Take care.

Did Instagram not shut us off?

No, they did not. We'll have to check. Take a look at that. Maybe we didn't go longer.

Like, give us longer time on Instagram.

I don't know.

Thank you, Instagram. Okay, shout out to Instagram. All right, friends.

All right. Thank you.

See you next Monday. Bye bye. Huh?