VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
In this video I’m showing you how to pass your med-surg classes in nursing school the EASY way. I’ll give you the step-by-step breakdown for how to study SMARTER, not harder, so you can pass nursing school. Now hit the subscribe button and click the notification bell, and let’s dive in.
Med surg nursing is one of the hardest topics to learn in nursing school. There are so many different diseases and disorder to know, and it is so difficult to figure out what information is important and what isn’t. You don’t want to waste your time studying the wrong things that aren’t going to be on your exams.
There are so many mistakes I see nursing students make: like reading every word in the textbook and not connecting the dots and learning how to critically think.
I’m going to spill all the beans today and give you the secret on what you actually NEED to study in med surg, and what you don’t, and how to critically think along the way.
And this whole process starts by learning how to take amazing notes in class. Because without good notes, your studying will just fall apart. You need good notes so that you can study effectively!
So here’s the step-by-step process for how to do that:
The first step is to print off all of your power points, outlines, study aids, modules, basically anything your professors give you. Print it all off and organize it before class. And here’s a little bonus tip for you: when I printed off PowerPoints, I liked to change the printer settings so that it would print 3 slides, with a notes section next to it. That way it gave me some room to take notes during class.
I also liked to have different binders for each of my different classes: med surg 1, skills lab, clinical, all the classes I was taking. This just really helped me to keep everything organized nicely. So put all of those papers you just printed off into the appropriate binder.
Now during class, you have 2 choices: you can take notes directly on your PowerPoint slides like I did, or you can take notes in a separate notebook. If your professor doesn’t teach off a PowerPoint, you’ll need to take notes in a separate notebook. So this is step number 2: decide how you want to take notes in class and follow through with it: are you going to take notes in a separate notebook or directly on the PowerPoints or study aids your professor gave you.
When I took notes on the PowerPoint slides, I would write all of my in class notes here on the lines as much as possible. That left me a lot of room to take notes from the textbook around the edges, and we’ll get to that strategy in a minute. But that’s how I did that. So in class, I would try to keep my notes condensed to the lined area as much as possible.
And then, once class is over, you can go home and find the places in the textbook that correspond to the topics your professor talked about in class. I’ve talked about this strategy a LOT here on this channel, because it’s one of the best study strategies to use in nursing school: focus on studying the things your professors talk about in class. Don’t worry about reading every single thing in the book, that’s a huge waste of time, and you’ll never have time to actually learn it. You’ll just spend all your time reading. It’s important to learn how to focus, and the best thing to focus on, that I’ve found, are the topics that your professors talked about in class, because those are the one’s that are most likely to show up on your exams.
Now if your professor doesn’t lecture during class, or if you spend class just going case scenario questions, don’t worry friend, I have the answer for you on how to study. Stay with me, we’ll get there in just a minute.
So step number 3 is to find the places in the textbook that correspond to what you just learned in class, and take notes from the textbook onto the same note pages you used in class. This just keeps all of your notes organized and in one place, so you’re not flipping between different notebooks trying to find information. I liked to keep my class notes and textbook notes all in the same place.
So that’s why I would leave all that room around the edges of my PowerPoints. I wanted to make sure I would have enough room to write down all my textbook notes.
And here’s another pro tip for you: write the page numbers from the textbook next to where you wrote the notes, so you know what page they came from. That way, when you’re studying for your exam, you don’t need to search back through the textbook. You can quickly flip to the right page because you wrote down what page you got it from. It keeps everything so much more organized!
Now in just a minute, I’m going to tell you exactly what to focus your study time on after you take all of these notes, and I’m also going to give you a breakdown on how to critically think and connect the dots about it all. So hang tight, you are going to be a med-surg PRO after this video!
So those are your 3 steps for how to take efficient notes in class: print everything out, take your in class notes either in a separate notebook or on the PowerPoint or module, and then when you get home, focus on reading the sections of the book that your professor talked about in class or outlined in the modules or study aids. This will really help you focus your study time and help you be super efficient.
Now, a common question I get from students is: Christina! My professors don’t actually teach us anything! What am I supposed to do then?!
Well, friend, don’t you worry for one more second, because here’s the secret about med-surg that no one tells you: There are only 4 main things you need to focus on in your med surg nursing classes: pathophysiology, signs and symptoms, nursing assessment, and nursing interventions. That’s it. End of story.
So, if your professor doesn’t lecture during class, or if you don’t really learn anything, or if you are just going through a lot of case scenarios, then here’s what you’re going to do:
Take the topics of your case scenarios, the modules, the syllabus, or other study material that your school gave you, and grab a notebook. Then, you’re going to go through each med-surg disorder one by one, and write down these 4 things: pathophysiology, signs and symptoms, nursing assessment, and nursing interventions.
Then go through your textbook and write down the answers for each one of those categories. So for med-surg disorder number 1, let’s say it’s heart failure. You’ll write down the pathophysiology of heart failure. Then you’ll write down the signs and symptoms, and what you will assess for, and then the nursing interventions you’ll need to do.
I have a free nursing school study checklist that walks you through this process step-by-step. Make sure to download it after watching this video, because friend, it’s game-changing. If you don’t have it, I just don’t even know what you’re going with life. It is SO stinking good, it’s going to save you so much time studying in nursing school. So make sure to get it after this video, the link is in the description below.
Med-surg is REALLY that simple. That’s all you need to know is those 4 things. Of course, you also need to be able to critically think through it all as well, and I’ll walk you through how to do that step-by-step in just a minute.
So as you’re studying, make sure you are focusing on learning those 4 main categories: the patho, the signs and symptoms, nursing assessment, and nursing interventions. And you will be golden!
Now as you know, nursing school is ALL about critical thinking. But the problem is that no one tells you exactly what that means. They just expect you to figure it out on your own. That always really bugged me, because I would always second guess myself and make it way more complicated than it should have been.
So I’m here to take that pain away from you and make it SUPER easy. I created a Critical Thinking Model that you can follow as you study in nursing school. It took me a long time to discover this, but when I did it was absolutely life changing. So I wanted to give it to you so that you can use it, too, and help take some of the stress out of nursing school and learning how to critically think.
But before we dive into the Critical Thinking Model, I want to give a shout out to Shelbi for our YouTube comment of the week. This is probably one of my favorite comments ever Shelbi, “LOVE x a Million!” I really appreciate how many exclamation marks there are at the end of that.
If you’ve ever gotten an email or DM from me, you know how much I love my exclamation marks. I am just so excited all the time, so Shelbi, thanks so much for your short and sweet comment, it made me really happy.
And keep those comments coming. They really help me to know what videos you like the most, what topics you want to see more of and how I can help you the best. So thanks so much for commenting on all of our videos, keep it up because it really helps me out!
Now let’s dive into the Critical Thinking Model. Your ability to think critically in nursing school can be the difference between getting an A in your med surg class, or getting a C. So it’s SUPER important that you know this stuff.
So let’s walk through the Critical Thinking Model together.
The Critical Thinking Model for nursing school goes like this: DRC. The “D” stands for definition or description. The “R” stands for reason or rationale, and the “C” stands for connection.
So here’s what you’ll do: for each med-surg topic you’re learning about, you’ll write down these 3 things: DRC.
Under the D category, you’ll write what it is. What’s the description of it? What is it exactly? This is the high level part here, you’re just giving an overview of what it is and what’s going on with it.
So for example, if you’re studying left sided heart failure you would write down something like, the heart can’t pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs. That’s the high level overview of what’s happening during left sided heart failure. The heart just can’t pump enough blood out to the body.
So that’s the D: what is it? What’s the description?
Now the R is where you start to dig deeper. This stands for reasoning and rationale. Under this category, you’ll write down WHY it happens. What’s the reason for it? Why does it matter? Why does it happen?
So for our left sided heart failure example, this would go back to the pathophysiology. WHY does left sided heart failure happen? And why does it matter?
So you might write something like: it happens because the heart is injured, and it matters because it causes decreased cardiac output and reduces blood flow to the rest of the body and causing the organs to get less blood, oxygen and nutrients.
This is the REASONING behind why it happens: what’s the pathophysiology of left sided heart failure, why does it happen, and why does it matter.
I really want you to dig deep and focus on the underlying reason or cause. Med surg nursing is all about studying these different disorders, and you need to know WHY they happen and what the effects are. So that’s what you’ll do here in this R category. What’s the reason for why it happens, and why does it matter?
Now step number 3 is really where you start critically thinking and connecting all the dots: and that’s the C part, connection. In this category, you’ll ask yourself how it connects to everything else you’re learning.
So for your med-surg classes, you’ll want to include the signs and symptoms you would expect to see, what you’d need to assess for, and what interventions you’ll need to do.
Keeping with our heart failure example, you could write something like: it reduces blood flow to the kidneys because the heart can’t pump as much blood out (which may lead to decreased urine output). It also causes fluid to back up into the lungs and body (because that blood can’t go forward like it should! It needs to go somewhere, so it backs up in the system). This can lead to edema and pulmonary congestion (and you may hear crackles in the lungs). So you’ll need to assess their weight, level of edema, and urine output.
Add as much as you’d like here, the more you can connect these concepts together, the better off you’ll be for your exams.
That Critical Thinking Model is going to help you soar in nursing school. If you use that to study, you will be so amazed at how well you understand all of the med surg disorders, and then of course, you’ll do so much better on your exams because of it!
So for every med-surg topic you’re learning about in nursing school, you can use this Model to help you connect the dots with it and really deepen your understanding of it.
Now the next major tip I want to give you for how to study in med surg is how to learn all of the medications you’ll give for each disorder. I wanted to mention this one here because I’ve gotten so many questions about it from our NursingSOS Members and from students over on Instagram.
So many students have told me: Christina, I’m in med surg now and I feel like I should know more than I do. I’m just not connecting the dots and things just aren’t coming together like they should be.
So the first thing I want to say about this is DROP your expectations. You are exactly where you need to be with the exact knowledge you should have. Don’t compare yourself to other students or some version of yourself you made up in your own mind. As long as you’re working hard and doing the best you can, that’s all you can do. Give yourself a break and don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re exactly where you need to be.
Now here’s the BEST news: you are going to learn so much as you go! Med-surg is just the beginning my friend. Every week your brain is going to explode with new information. And every time you go to clinical you’re going to be putting the puzzle pieces together more and more. It just takes time, but every day you will get better.
So when students ask me how to learn all of the medications for their med-surg class, I tell them 2 things: of course, you should jump into the NursingSOS Membership Community and go through our whole How to Study Pharmacology course, because, well it’s amazing. In that course, I walk you through step-by-step how to study pharm in nursing school.
But the second thing I tell them, is to learn your medications as you go and as you take care of patients who are taking those meds. That’s the BEST way to learn them is to actually care for patients who are on them.
So when you get your patient assignment at clinical, study all of their medications and make sure you know everything about those meds, like what it’s for, what the side effects are, what you need to assess for, how to give it safely, all of those things. The more you take care of patients with different medications, the more meds you’ll learn.
I also really recommend writing out med cards over and over again. The repetition of writing all of the information out will help it all come together faster.
That’s why I loved flash cards and white boards in nursing school. They were a HUGE asset for me, because just the act of writing things out again and again really helped me commit it all to memory.
So for each medication your patients have, write out all of the information you need to know about it. And do this for every patient you have.
The nice part is that many of your patients will likely have the same or similar medications. So you will be able to learn them all faster this way by writing it all out for each patient.
I’ll walk through the EASIEST way to create med cards in the next video in this series. So be sure to watch that video.
And don’t forget to snag your nursing school study checklist, the link is in the description below.
Now click on one of these videos here so you can keep rocking nursing school, and go become the nurse that God created only YOU to be. And I’ll catch you in the next video.
