Listen in on a tutoring consult to learn how to deal with beginning-of-semester overwhelm, the best way to study for fundamentals, health assessment, and pharmacology…and how adult learners can turn your life experience into a significant ADVANTAGE when it comes to critical thinking skills.
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Links from Episode 59:
Leave a 5-start rating and review for the Navigating Nursing School with Your Nursing Tutor Podcast on Apple Podcast: www.YourNursingTutor.com/podcast
Free, 20-min Silver Bullet Study System Workshop (the BEST way to study for nursing school!): https://register.yournursingtutor.com/sbss-workshop
LIVE Tutoring Membership: www.YourNursingTutor.com/vip
Free Facebook Group: Nursing Students in Nursing School, (Free Help and Support)
Transcript for Episode 59
Hey there! This is Nurse Nicole, founder of Your Nursing Tutor. And today I’m excited to share with you another recent Tutoring Consult that I did with one of my VIP Tutoring Members, Darcy.
I think one reason that you like listening to these Tutoring Consult episodes that I’ve started sharing is because it’s so reassuring to know that you’re NOT the only one experiencing these questions, concerns, and struggles in nursing school. It’s a phenomenon that I noticed a long time ago in my tutoring career. And it’s the reason why I decided to switch from offering private tutoring, which is super expensive and time intensive, to offering the VIP Tutoring membership…which is just as capable of equipping you towards more confidence and better grades, but on your own schedule AND at a much cheaper cost than private tutoring.
Today, you’ll be hearing my advice for Darcy, who is a brand new VIP Tutoring Member who started her core nursing courses just last week. She’s a 40-something mom, who was inspired to finally go back to school for nursing after her daughter was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at the age of 10.
You’ll hear us discuss how to deal with the feeling of overwhelm, especially at the very beginning of school. We talk about the best way to study for fundamentals, health assessment, and pharmacology. And we also discuss how being an adult learner actually gives you an advantage when it comes to critical thinking skills, so long as you know how to harness it.
If you’d like to read more about today’s episode, or access any of the free resources I mention today, you can find those links by going to the show notes page at www.YourNursingTutor.com/episode59.
Enjoy today’s Tutoring Consult episode!
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Nicole Whitworth
Okay, so you are getting ready to start your classes this week is that
Darcy
I just finished my first week. Okay, how did it go? I am completely overwhelmed. I have no idea. Like, I feel like there’s just information coming from everywhere. I don’t even know where to begin. Because that’s where I’m at right now.
Nicole Whitworth
Okay, tell me. Are you in? Are you doing an RN program? Or? Yes, I am.
Darcy
I’m doing an RN I have a bachelor’s degree in from a million years ago, I took my took my right I took my sciences over. And I decided on the RN because I felt like it was better suited for my family life rather than do like a BSN or, you know, my Bachelor’s to BSN like bridge program later on later. Okay. Yeah, I couldn’t do like the full time. I’m doing a night program. Okay. Okay. So it is full time but it gets easier, like, you know, through the community college in terms of Courseload
Nicole Whitworth
right. Are you I forget if you said are you working at the same time or?
Darcy
So my daughter might my daughter has cystic fibrosis, so I was not at the beginning or would have been home with her. Okay, ever ever since. So? I said
Nicole Whitworth
you’re able to do that. Yeah. Yeah, fortunately,
Darcy
God, God, thank God, but I’m not working my part time a little bit, but nothing. Okay, sounds good.
Nicole Whitworth
I’m just getting a feel for your unique challenges and situations. So. Okay. And so your let me see, are you taking like fundamentals this semester
Darcy
pharmacology fundamentals and physical assessment? Okay. Okay, so,
Nicole Whitworth
um, so it’s, first of all, let me normalize, it’s totally normal to feel overwhelmed. Unfortunately. I don’t think that’s the way that nursing school shouldn’t be. But it is the common state of things. And it’s definitely not the way it has to be. But it’s kind of a culture that’s been created right now. So I work on dismantling that you can feel a little calmer and that you can do nursing school and still have a life because you have a family, you know, and get through it, and it’ll be fine. So her, let’s say you just joined fairly recently. So have you? Well, first of all, how did you find out about your nursing tutor and the VIP tutoring membership?
Darcy
I basically was googling like, resources to help me prioritize. I know what I know what’s worked for me in the past, as far as studying and, you know, getting A’s and doing all that, but I needed I really wanted something that was going to help me focus and learn because I feel like this is more you got to understand everything. It’s not like, I’m just doing Quizlet over and over and memorizing and then dumping it, you know, like, I really want to understand everything. And I guess Google really,
Nicole Whitworth
okay, so just like looking for resources to help. Yeah. Figure out how to do
Darcy
it all. Yeah, it started with like a dimensional analysis, dosage calculations search and then I kind of just, you know, went down that rabbit hole and then somehow stumbled. Okay, okay, I want to go about the pros. Like, no, about 15 minutes and be Dumpty. I watched those modules is where I’ve gotten to so far.
Nicole Whitworth
Okay, that was gonna be my next question is What have you had the chance to do in the membership so far? So you’ve, you’ve gotten into the membership you’ve gone through like the welcome video and the the silver bullet study system intro. Okay. How do you feel? What do you feel about studying after watching that video? What did you think of that?
Darcy
I feel like it makes complete sense. It’s like, logical, you know, but yeah, I don’t know how to apply it to say physical assessment. Because right now, they’re just like, throwing stuff at you. And you’re like, wait, what? Like, I don’t even I don’t, I’m trying to still kind of like today I was sitting down and like, Okay, how do I apply it to where I’m at right now? Mm hmm. Okay, perfect. And the other thing to note is I don’t have Facebook, so I can’t join.
Nicole Whitworth
Oh, that’s okay. If just for you, wherever I said that. I should probably put a note on all of those because we don’t have the Facebook group anymore. We actually transition to the online forum. So because exactly what you said, not everybody has Facebook. And even if you have Facebook, it’s kind of distracting to hop on Facebook to ask a question, because you know what happens? Yes. Which is why? Yes, you get separated. So we phase we’re phasing that out anyway. And we have the online forum, which hopefully you saw in your membership area, that you just go there. Yep, you just log in to your member resource library and one of the modules I think it’s probably the first one there. So actually, I can show I can show it to you real quick, so hang on real quick. But um, okay. So while I’m pulling that up. So if there’s what can I help you with today that will help you feel the best prepared going forward after our meeting?
Darcy
What do you think is the starting point of trying to like when they’re like, here are the first 10 chapters read them? You know, and like, how do you apply the silver bullet study system to fundamentals or to pharmacology or to the physical assessment?
Nicole Whitworth
Sure. Okay. I’m just taking that so I don’t forget. Okay. No, that’s great. That’s what I kind of thought you’re leaning towards, but I just wanted to make sure that that was gonna Yeah, we
Darcy
could just use like a machine like a launching pad. Yep.
Nicole Whitworth
Yep, I can help you with that. That’s perfect. Yeah, you’re like the Yeah, ideal student for the VIP tutoring membership. Because, you know, that’s, that’s what it’s for, it’s for you to kind of like jump in, kind of get the framework. Yeah. And then come to me or go to, you know, either through, you know, this, this call or after today, there’s the live tutoring sessions that I do about once a week. And there’s also the, the community forum. So this is where it is right here. So this is just the members resource library. If you’re in one of the modules, you can just click on my library up here, and just go to the member forum right here. And, you know, if you just if so if you have like a tutoring question, go ahead and put that in general questions here. If you just want to, like, connect with other students or talk about something, maybe not specifically related to content, but just like a general question, you can put it here, but you know, and then, whenever you have success stories, go ahead and post them here. And that’s pretty much this is where me and my husband will make announcements if you guys need to sit down. Yeah, these are the places you see, we just recently switched over to this from, like, so. So but it’s been working really, really well, so far. And I think it helps people stay focused too. And plus, then you can also search it for when other people whereas once it’s in the Facebook group, it’s kind of hard to find, once it’s been answered right time, so. Okay, so So yeah, so that’s where you can go and and I’ll tell you starting out, I think a lot of times, when you’re learning the silver bullet study system, as a returning students, most of the members in the membership are returning students. So they’re, like, very similar situation to yours, I think you’ll find a lot of other students who know exactly what you’re going through, okay. But it can be especially hard, because as an adult, you’re used to feeling very competent, and a lot of things. Right, right. Because you’ve been competent at, you know, for your whole life. And then now we’re going to nursery school, it’s something that’s brand new, and as you, you know, heard and discovered, the ways that you study before nursing school, don’t work the same for nursing school. And the reason why is I mean, you’re, you’re pretty insightful on it, I can hear because a lot of students, it takes them several semesters to figure it out, if they figure it out at all, which is, you know, in other classes, you are studying the content, and like the knowledge and then you get tested on the content. And then and then you’re gone. Yeah, and you move on to the next thing. But in nursing school, there’s you get tested, or you get told to study the content. And there is some content, you have to know, right? But then they turn around and test you not on the content, but they test you on how to think about the content. And that’s where the trickiness really comes in. Because you have to be studying in a much different way to be practicing how to think about the content, versus just memorizing the content. And then of course, there’s that third part, where you’re going to actually need to use the skin next semester. So there’s like no brain dumping, because it builds on each other. And what I find a lot of times, this is why it’s such a such a good thing that you’re working on this now at the very beginning of your core nursing classes, is because I work with a lot of students who like I said, they haven’t, nobody’s told them about this. And they haven’t seen this until second, third, fourth semester, sometimes they’ve graduated and they can’t pass the NCLEX. And, and they’re just like at their wit’s end, and they can’t figure out what they’ve been doing wrong. But it’s because at that point, if you because you’ve missed out on the opportunity to build this firm foundation now for semester, it’s like they call it studying on stilts. So they’re studying on stilts in the advanced things, and that is not sustainable. So Right. It’s only sustainable for so long. So the so let’s talk about how to apply the Silver Rule to study system then to pharmacology and health assessment. And I will show you if you haven’t seen them, I share my screen again real quick. See, okay, if I go back to the library, I just want to show you Oh, actually could have hid down here on the side. But we’ll go to the nursing students pathway. And if you hadn’t seen them already, there are some more training.
Darcy
Yeah, I got. I went down and did these. Yeah, I opened them up. I didn’t dive into them. The one that I did, I printed out the pharmacology one.
Nicole Whitworth
Okay, that’s good. Yeah, so these two might be good for you, too. Yeah, those fundamentals because it goes through an example goes through a full exam. For, on how to do it, how, how you could apply the silver bullet study system to a topic, I think I went through blood pressure for that example. So that’s one resource that you can also refer back to. And there’s also I have a completed Silver Bullet study system outline for those two, like he said, you saw the one for from Yes. Okay, so there’s one for fundamentals two, if he does, whatever that Yeah, but, but I can also like, since we’re one on one, right now, I can kind of fast track that for you a little bit, you know. So, the key thing to remember is that whenever you’re applying Silver Bullet study system, the most important thing to do is that step one, it’s trying to identify what your foundational information is, for whatever topic it is you’re trying to study. And it’s allowing yourself to prior
Darcy
to that test. Correct. Right, like, yeah, we’re doing respiratory, you need to know, your
Nicole Whitworth
Yep, your ANP and stuff like that. Yeah. So anytime you sit down, like even, you know, yeah, anytime you sit down to study a topic, you want to, you know, before you even like, dive in, you want to just kind of stop and brainstorm. What what do I think am I going to need to know about this, okay. And don’t be a perfectionist about it. Because here’s the thing, you’re going to miss some things. Okay, that’s part of the learning process. In fact, sometimes, it’s better to miss some things on this first pass, because we all know that when we you know, quote, unquote, make mistakes, we’re more likely to remember that later, right? Because it stands out in our brain better. And here’s the thing, this is why this is okay, is that this is our study time. So it’s okay to make mistakes. Now, this is when we want to be making those, again, I’m putting this in quotes, because they’re not really mistakes. It’s just, we just, we just tend to think of them that way. But um, you know, this is when we want to be doing this, and that the silver bullet sis study system has this built in process, where as we go through the four steps, you’ll be able to self identify any thing you missed, and then you can go back and add it in. Okay. And actually, the fundamentals, Silver Bullet study, system, video has a really good example of that in that in that training, but what is it? What’s something that you’re going to be that you’re working on right now? And when your classes we can go through?
Darcy
Well like to like today? I was going over and doing like the nursing process? So I don’t know, because it’s everything. I don’t know, what my base should be. Do you notice your net? Like the whole bot like, right?
Nicole Whitworth
So
Darcy
for this particular situation, does that not apply?
Nicole Whitworth
Okay, so are you are you talking about add pi or? Yes. Okay, so we’re talking about add pi. It still applies. But I will say one of the challenges that I think that makes whenever you start something new it everything always feels overwhelming, because you do feel like you have to kind of like, trying to implement the whole system, but you’re trying to learn,
Darcy
some of it is like so logical. Do you know what I mean? Like, I am a mother and 41 years old, but like, am I gonna screw this up? You know, I mean? Like, like, Wait, why is it seems so logical, but like, there’s got to be a trick to this. Right.
Nicole Whitworth
I am so glad you said that Darcy, because there is no trick. Okay. Here’s the thing they emphasize. I was just talking, I was interviewed somebody for a podcast yesterday, who’s going to be coming up soon. And we were just talking about this, because nursing students get told you need to improve your critical thinking you need to improve your critical thinking. And I’m like, like you said, you’re a 40 year old mom, like you’ve lived some life, you can take care of an entire family. Right? Like you have critical thinking skills. You have them you’re, you’re excellent at them because you’re still live independently,
Darcy
right? Where 11 year old is still alive? No, yes,
Nicole Whitworth
you’ve taken care of. So you have critical thinking skills. It’s just we’re learning how to transition to be able to apply those same exact critical thinking skills to nursing topics. Okay? And in order to do that, we do need to pull in a little bit of new nursing information, but not as much as you think, honestly, just enough to be able to have something to think about as we’re drawing these conclusions. Okay? So don’t overthink it. Trust your brain. That’s one of the things I tell people over and over again is trust your brain. Okay? And this is why it’s so important to you know, when you’re following the silver bullet study systems do this logically because you’re you’re taking the The information you already have and the skill set you already have. You’re adding in the new information and new skills when necessary. And you’re combining it. Okay, and then you’re just walking through the steps. Okay, right? Yes, that process takes practice. But it’s something that since you’re doing, you’re doing it intentionally, you’re gonna get better at it over time. Okay, it’s like riding a bike, just like learning to swim, just like driving a car. So, so if it feels too easy, go with it. Because it probably just means you’re understanding it. Okay. I think this is one of the big flaws in the way that we do nursing education is that it gets built up. Oh, it’s like big, tough. And, and I don’t know why this is, I don’t know, I feel like sometimes in history, nurses feel like they had to compete with doctors and medical school is terrible for this sort of thing. Like, you know, if you don’t, if you’re not like miserable, then you’re clearly not learning. Right? Right. Right. true at all. That’s not right. In fact, I would argue the opposite. Right? Right, there’s no, there’s no need to make yourself a murder to, to be a successful nurse. So. So that being said, I think, you know, you just you don’t need to kill yourself to study this automation, you just need to organize it and understand it in a way that makes sense to your brain. So that being said, we’re taking topics, fundamentals, and health assessment, in particular, tend to be topics that there’s a lot of normal stuff, okay, and this is, this is very true at the beginning of nursing school, because most of your stuff that you’re learning is going to be kind of your normal baseline. And, of course, step one in silver bullets, IT system is, generally speaking, all your normal stuff, right. So earlier on in nursing school, you tend to be much more heavily focused on the step one areas of, of the silver bullet study system. But it’s important to start practicing steps two, three, and four as well. And there are different certain topics will lend itself better to that than others. But there’s ways to go through that for all of any topic, and I’ll talk about that in a second. And then you’ll find that later as you advance in nursing school, that you are going to spend much less time in step one and even steps two, because guess what? Respiratory a&p doesn’t change between semesters one and four. Right. So once you’ve learned it, once you’ve mastered it, you’re done. Like, you just need to briefly review it to keep it fresh, but it’s not going to be that terrible. But what you what skill you need, you’ll move on to the higher level critical thinking skills that you get that you practice, and steps three and four, more heavily in your later classes. And like I was saying, that’s the studying on stilts, because if you haven’t taken the time now, to build that foundation, in your steps one and two, then as your classes move towards that more advanced Critical Thinking requirements, it really gets challenging. There really are so so it all comes back to identifying what is the what’s the normal that I need to know to understand this topic. So with advice, I mean, if you’re going to do any memorizing, it’s going to be in step one. Okay. And so it’s
Darcy
okay for me to memorize. Oh, yes.
Nicole Whitworth
Yes, yeah, for these kinds of things for this. So my general rule for memorizing is, or at least for flashcards, because I’m not a big fan of flashcards in general because it gets so overused by nursing burns. But if you’re going to use flashcards, it needs to be like a one to one correspondence effects. Okay. Yes. So add pi is perfect, because it’s a what’s it’s not I want to say acronym. It’s not an acronym. You know, ABPM Yeah, whatever. That represents something else. So you need to know, this is the, the pneumonic, that’s what is the mnemonic? Yes, this is what the mnemonic means that’s a one to one fact. Okay. Right. And, but then you can, anything beyond that you kind of want to use a more active learning strategy, so that it sticks better so that you understand it so that you know how to practice analyzing and applying it. So. So for example, then we might have, you know, what Ed pie is, you know, assessment, diagnosis, plan, implement, evaluate, right. So now we go on to step two. Now, step two is really the Humpty Dumpty factor. So what’s broken? Well, we don’t I mean, like, it’s hard to think well, what do you mean what advice well, you Just do a little thought experiment. That’s why I said we’re going to be more heavily in step one for fundamentals than for the others. So you don’t even necessarily have to write this down, you just take a minute to think about it. Okay? Speak it out loud. Sometimes I find it can be very uncomfortable. But it is you need to do something active that forces you to use your own words, okay? You have to practice putting these concepts in your own words, and otherwise you risk just repeating what’s in the textbook, like, if you’re just highlighting or even just copying the notes word for word, it’s not going to stick because it’s not your own. Okay? But if you say, Okay, so when I am with a patient, I need to go through the five steps of add pi. What if I don’t? What if I say stuff? That would be something that would break with the process, right? And then you can just kind of work through? Well, what if I skip assessment? And I go straight diagnostics? Okay, so that would be your step two. And then step three is like, is, you know, the, what I call crystal ball predictions, we’re talking about, what? What symptoms would we see? Okay, now in this case would be like, what would happen to my patient? If I skipped the assessment phase of the nursing process? What ideas do you have?
Darcy
Well, you could miss diagnose. Yeah, you can miss.
Nicole Whitworth
Right? And you’re like, This is dumb, Nicole, this is like, super easy.
Darcy
Right? But you feel like it’s wrong.
Nicole Whitworth
Right? Yeah, you feel like it’s too easy. It’s too straightforward. Right? But it’s not, this is exactly the way you need to be thinking. And part of the challenges. So I have the I’ve, I talked about this problem called the expert, the novice problem, where it’s this, it’s what I see as the cause of this big disconnect that I see between professors and nursing students across the world, really, it’s that they literally
Darcy
are talking and I don’t know how to take a blood pressure, right? Like, my daughter has cystic fibrosis, I can tell you, every single thing about the respiratory, but I’ve never taken blood pressure. And she goes on a complete thing about blood pressure. And I’m like, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Yeah. Is that like what you’re referring
Nicole Whitworth
to? That’s exactly what I’m, that’s the exact phenomenon I’m referring to. Because she it makes perfect sense to her. Right? She’s talking about all these things, and how they’re all related. But once you’re an expert at something, it’s really, really hard to think back to what it was like to be a beginner, and to remember what things were difficult or easy to understand as a beginner. And so because of that, professors are notoriously bad. At
Darcy
Excel. Ironically, they’re teaching you don’t use medical jargon, when you’re talking to your patients. And it’s like you’re doing the exact same thing to me.
Nicole Whitworth
Exactly. Yeah. Because it’s because it stopped being jargon to them, and has become just their everyday language. Right. And someday, you’ll get there too. But what I hope, as part of my mission with your nursing tutor, is that because you’ve been through this process, you will remember what it was like to be a beginner, even if you can’t remember all the nuance, you will remember this problem and you’ll be able to look back at new nurses and have more patience, and compassion. And, and not not take it personal if they don’t understand something you’re explaining and instead, turn around and try different ways of explaining it. That makes sense to their brain. Yes, right. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, so yeah. So I think that’s, that’s a perfect example of like when they growing off talking about blood pressure, and you’re like, Oh, I do not know what you’re talking about.
Darcy
It was just like, last night, I was just sitting there like, Okay, well, yeah, that was 15 minutes of my time that I wasn’t following, you know, and it was not useful to you, right? Yeah. Not at all. Or I can’t imagine too many of the people in my class, right? Yeah. Probably not. Maybe a handful of CNAs. But, yeah, yeah, no,
Nicole Whitworth
I had. I noticed this phenomenon when I was in nursing school, because my previous degree before I went to nursing school was I have a master’s in clinical psychology. I’m planning to get my PhD. And I was sitting in our mental health nursing class. And my professor was I don’t even remember exactly what she was talking about. But she was she was notorious for going on tangents, too. And she went on some tangent story about whatever mental health topic we were talking about that day. And I knew exactly what she was talking about. I was following along. I was engaged. But it was because I already had I was already an expert in mental health by then Right. And so I was like, wow, today was a really great class, surprisingly. And I turn around at the end of class and I look around, not a single one of my classmates and followed. And that’s when I realized I’m like, Oh, I got lucky today, because I had this other specialized knowledge set. So I was able to follow her. But if I didn’t have that, then this was this whole lecture was a wash for everybody. Right? Right. Yeah. So which is
Darcy
so unfortunate, right, such a disconnect. And I don’t know if somehow I was nominated as the leader of our of our class. So like, well, I’m lucky for these people, because I am one hell of an advocate. So yeah,
Nicole Whitworth
yeah. That’s gonna be you know, I love I love mentoring advocates. So
Darcy
yeah, so hopefully, it can, you know, there’s like, just because I can’t imagine that from a standpoint of a an institution and a program that you don’t you want your students to be this completely lost, right? Yeah, you don’t? You don’t, I can’t imagine theory. However,
Nicole Whitworth
what do you find, sometimes it just has become so ingrained in a lot that they can’t even see it sometimes. And so that’s why they need people to come through and respectfully advocate, right, in order to make change, but you can’t get frustrated at the same time, if it doesn’t change as fast as you’d prefer. Because, you know, these institutions have been there for you know, long time, and they’re going to be there after you graduate. And you’re going to be there for, you know, a year or two and, and that’s it, but you got to still try to make your mark while you can, you know, we’ve tried to leave things better than you found them. And that’s the only way we’re gonna really change nursing education. Yeah, that other time. So, yeah. So I would just say so. So yeah. So that’s, that’s how you can apply it to these normal topics. And, you know, and it’s going to be similar with health assessment, because health assessment can be very overwhelming, which I always debate like, is it a good idea to teach health assessment the first semester or not, because you’re like throwing people into the entire body. But at the same time, you kind of need those skills in order to go into a clinical setting, too. So you know, it’s a catch 22. But to avoid the overwhelm, again, keep remind yourself constantly, that it’s normal to feel overwhelmed, not because you’re, you’re not competent. It’s because let me say, I guess, because you’re Hear me out, don’t take this the wrong way. You’re not competent. But that’s to be expected is what I say. Right? Right. It’s expected that you’re not because you’re learning. Right, right. Oh, buddy, you’re competent at the beginning. That’s why you’re going to nursing school. So at that sense, you are totally competent for the skill level that you’re supposed to be out right now. Yeah. And so you need to think about it that way. Instead of comparing yourself to your professor who is an expert. Right, right. Right. So you need to have a, a an honest perception of your current level, and patience and grace with yourself. Okay, okay. And then my best advice for health assessment as always that it is you need to focus on what’s normal, like almost completely because with health assessment, this is not an advanced class where you have this is not med surg yet. Yeah. You don’t need to be identifying every single possible thing that could go wrong. Okay. There’s, and there’s because there’s two ways that you can identify if something’s wrong, right? You can memorize everything that could possibly go wrong. Right? Or you could memorize what normal supposed to look like. And know that anything that’s not that is wrong. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So which way would you rather study for health?
Darcy
Exactly, exactly. That makes perfect sense.
Nicole Whitworth
Yeah. So you want to study what’s normal. And this is going to include normal variations. One of the most obvious examples of newborn birthmarks, because there’s really funky looking, newborn birthmarks. And what they will do is they will give you a test question, when you get to that chapter. And let’s say babies just been born. Mother says she’s concerned because baby has this off the wall sounding mark on their skin. What are you going to tell the mom, right? And it’s going to be things like I’m going to call CPS because you’re beating your newborn. You know, and there’s going to be, but there’s going to be one that says something and you can’t predict what exactly the wording is going to be. Which is why nursing tests are so much different and you have to learn to trust your brain for your critical thinking. Right? Because one of the answer choices is going to say something that indicates that this is a variation of mine. Normal. Okay,
Darcy
so just know the very first no normal and then
Nicole Whitworth
no normal data no normal. And then and then you’re going to know how to get it right? And that answer is going to jump out at you, versus being like most of your classmates who are, you know, trying to focus on all the little details while they’re studying. And they’re gonna be able to narrow down to two answer choices, and then they’re gonna probably pick the wrong one, because they’re feeling a little unsure. And it’s a good distractor. Right? Yeah. So you, you focus in health assessment, you focus on normal, and then anything that’s a deviation of normal, you know, that that’s going to require more assessment. Right. So and, and as a beginning nurse, I mean, that’s pretty much what the goal of this particular classes and you’ll learn more about what to do with that later on in med search and stuff like that.
Darcy
So awesome.
Nicole Whitworth
Yeah. So do you feel better prepared?
Darcy
Yeah. Yeah, I do. I feel like okay, well, I’m not, you know, I think a lot of the overwhelming part of it is that they’re like, if you don’t make 79 or above you fail, you know, and it’s just like, hey, well, you’ve already told me, you know, we’ve already put me in the bracket. So like, now, you know, you’re just so overwhelmed with that, that you can’t even focus on. Yeah, like, now I’m like, What am I gonna fail? Like? Yeah, I don’t know. I just, yeah, idea is just so
Nicole Whitworth
it’s kind of like, it’s kind of like parenting, you know, like, we have the tendency, at least I have the tendency I struggle with to like, parents or kids based on the bad things. Like, we all know that, like, it’s easier. It’s better to parent our kids by encouraging them. And by focusing on the good side of things and flipping them, but we often find ourselves being like, you better do this or else. Right. Right. And yeah, and so it’s, it’s a lot of the same way in nursing school, I think, and, and so you have to, but luckily, we’re adults, not kids. So we have that perspective. And we can recognize that and be like, Okay, I see what you’re doing here. Well put my blinders on. Right, and remind myself and that’s another good thing with the VIP tutoring membership is because you can come to the community and get a dose of reality, okay? Because just because your professors and your nursing program are speaking these things to you does not make it reality. Okay. Okay. So you get to, because if it did, then nursing school really would be a dark place, and there’d be no hope of having a life until you graduate. Right? And why would anybody do that to themselves willing? Right? Right. Right. But but it doesn’t have to be like you. You can navigate that and put your blinders on and be doing the things that you need to do to work smarter, not harder, and you can get through it relatively unscathed.
Darcy
I’ll take that.
Nicole Whitworth
Yes. So, okay. Do you have any last minute questions before we wrap up?
Darcy
No, I’m good. Okay, keep in touch.
Nicole Whitworth
Awesome. Yeah, make sure you have any questions, put them in the forum or come to one of the live tutoring sessions and awesome for you.
Darcy
I’m in class during the live tutoring. So they’re all video recorded. Right?
Nicole Whitworth
Yes, they are all recorded. Yeah. And sometimes I try to do it. Like, one Saturday.
Darcy
Yeah. 1pm on a Saturday, I think so.
Nicole Whitworth
Yeah, I try to switch it up a little bit, because I know everybody’s got different schedules. So.
Darcy
Okay, awesome. You’re hoping to do better and that everybody makes it out? Well,
Nicole Whitworth
me too. Thank you so much. Take care
———-
I hope you found that Tutoring Consult interesting and helpful! If you’d like to schedule a Tutoring Consult so that I can help YOU create a customized plan for success,just like I did for Darcy, let me explain the process to schedule a Tutoring Consult for yourself.
First off, I only offer these to VIP Tutoring Members. The reason is because there are NO quick fixes when it comes to tutoring in nursing school, and anybody who tries to tell you otherwise is just trying to trick you out of your money. So when I meet with you for a Tutoring Consult, I want to make sure that you’ve got the support you need to commit to your success plan and solve whatever issues you’ve currently got going on. Or, if you’re still pre-nursing, that you’ve got the tools and support needed to prevent those issues from ever happening.
But it’s easy to become a member, and I currently even offer a free 7-day trial. There’s no long-term commitments, and you can cancel at any time.
All you have to do is go to www.YourNursingTutor.com/vip, and click to join the 7-day FREE trial of VIP Tutoring Membership. You’ll be asked to enter your membership information and credit card number, BUT before you finalize your membership MAKE SURE TO select the optional add-on for a discounted, 30-min Tutoring Consult. You’ll see a little checkbox with the information right there on the joining page.
After you add-on the Tutoring Consult, click to submit your membership request and follow the on-screen instructions. Within a few minutes you’ll receive an email with your login information and a special link you can use to schedule your Tutoring Consult with me. If you schedule right away, then we can probably meet within less than a week from now! Or you can save the tutoring consult for later on. It’s totally up to you.
Remember, you can get the links for the VIP Tutoring Membership and any other links I mentioned today by going to the show notes page for today’s episode, which can be found at www.YourNursingTutor.com/episode59
One last thing…if you’d like to continue hearing more tutoring consults like today’s episode, please subscribe to the podcast, AND leave a 5-star rating on Apple Podcasts. It’s one small way that you can support the mission of Your Nursing Tutor AND help other nursing students discover that they CAN get through nursing school, too.
I look forward to speaking with you soon at a private Tutoring Consult! Until then, good luck on your nursing journey!
Nicole is a Professional Nursing Tutor with over 15 years experience, and the founder of Your Nursing Tutor. She has a BSN, and an MA in Clinical Psychology. Nicole specializes in providing easy-to-follow, proven study methods (like the Silver Bullet Study System) that transform frustrated nursing students into calm, confident nurses! When she’s not helping students through her Live Tutoring Membership, Nicole loves spending time with her husband, homeschooling their 6 kids, and staring at sunflowers.
