Hey everyone, it's Nurse Sarah with RegisteredNurseRN.com and in this video I want to talk about some study strategies you can use to help you prep for these case study questions that you're going to encounter on the next generation NCLEX exam. So let's get started. First, let's talk about how a case study question is different. So a case study is like this scenario of how a patient may present to you with a particular disease. And this scenario is going to build upon itself and it's going to walk you through these certain questions of how you would handle this patient as they progress during their hospitalization or whatever with this particular disease.
And these case studies are very similar to what you're going to encounter on the job. So they're very helpful in testing your nursing knowledge. For example, like how you're able to identify important symptoms, what labs are abnormal, and what you're going to do about it, and what to watch for, and how you're going to deliver care.
and provide patient education. So this whole scenario is going to try to capture your knowledge on that with this case study. So the big question that a lot of people are asking is how do I prepare for these case study questions? Well first you want to make sure that you're exposing yourself to next generation case study questions and I have actually developed a mock next generation NCLEX case study that you may want to check out because I walk you through step by step how to answer these questions and how to handle these scenarios.
In that video you'll familiarize yourself with how case studies work and how to think critically. So here's how I would approach studying for these case study questions. So one important thing that you need to do as you're studying is that you need to make sure that you're truly understanding the material.
You're not just memorizing it for a moment but you truly know what's going on with the patient. For example, whenever you're studying disease processes, diseases, I like to compare them to an onion because they have a lot of layers to them. There's a lot of information that we need to know in order to know what's going on with our patient.
So as we're taking care of a patient, just like with an onion, we have to, in a sense, peel back those layers of the disease so we can get to the core of the problem so we know what to do for our patient. And those layers could be compared to the patho, the signs and symptoms, the labs and diagnostics, the treatment, the medication, and your role as the nurse. And you want to be familiar with all those different layers because if you can get those layers of what's going on with your patient in your head, it's going to be like a domino effect for helping you just understand the whole disease process as a whole.
So as you study and you're peeling back those layers of that disease, you got to make sure that you don't skip certain layers. Because if you do, it's going to make understanding these disease processes a lot more difficult, which could make answering case study problems more difficult. So let me illustrate this for you. Let's say you're studying heart failure.
Okay, first thing you want to knock out, which layer you want to peel back first, is that pathophysiology. Okay. This is going to tell you what's occurring in the body, which systems are affected, and what causes it and why it causes it. And this layer is going to be the toughest for you.
It's going to take the most time of your learning, but it's the huge investment of your learning. Because once you figure out what's actually going on with the patient, it's going to have that domino effect. And it's just going to allow those other layers to just peel right off.
And it's just going to make so much sense. Because once we have figured out our patho, those signs and symptoms, they fall into place. And it's literally like you don't even have to memorize them.
Because with heart failure, you know we have a fluid volume overload. That's going to affect potentially if we're dealing with right-sided or left-sided. If we're dealing with right, we're going to see a lot of peripheral problems because we're going to have systemic circulation overload.
Where the patient's going to gain weight. They're going to have edema, swelling, JVD. But with left side, we know that... that fluid can go in the lungs. So we're going to have a lot of pulmonary problems.
And we learned all that information from our patho. Then when we go over to the layer of, okay, what do I need to know for labs and diagnostic reports? Because even though as a nurse, we don't order these, these things are very important to us because we need to know what we need to monitor for, what should be expected with that patient. And those abnormal signs and symptoms that you just learned about are going to help. go along with those abnormal labs and diagnostic reports.
Then that layer is going to feed into the patient's plan of care where we want to be familiar with what treatments can be ordered by the doctor, what medications could we expect this patient to be on, what procedures or testing the patient may need. And then once we know that layer, it'll make our layer of nursing very easy. to understand because what we do goes along with a lot of the treatments that are ordered. So we want to know the big things that we do and don't do for the patient. What's going to help them get better versus what's not going to help them get better and what to monitor and what to report like with medications.
What side effects are we monitoring for? We have a patient with heart failure. They're on loop diuretics.
What are we monitoring for? We're going to look at their urinary output. We're going to look at their electrolytes, particularly their potassium level.
and what information we provide them throughout their stay, along with discharge education and care. So the big takeaway from this is that as you study, you want to make sure in a sense that you're just surrendering yourself to the material. That you're just diving down into these diseases and learning all of the details about them.
because it's going to help you in the long run. And that's why in my lectures, I really take time to go over these details with you and help you connect the dots, rather than just giving you this quick bullet list of information and just saying, here's the signs and symptoms, here's the causes, but instead, I want to connect those signs and symptoms for you and the causes. Because whenever you really take the time to understand this material, you're going to be able to easily recall it for exams, but most importantly, on that. that job.
So this study strategy is an upfront investment, particularly in your time, but it's going to pay off majorly in the long run, not only professionally for you, but whenever you take this next generation NCLEX exam. So I've been hearing some feedback from you all who have taken this exam because it's been live for a few weeks now. And overall, it's been very positive. People are reporting that they're passing.
So that is good. And that they actually like these case study questions. So remember, the whole exam is not just case study questions.
We still have the other types of questions that have been on there before. There's just these new case studies that have been introduced. So really try not to stress about these case study questions.
Just try to study the best to your ability. I know that if you do that and just try to follow some of those tips I gave you that you're going to do great.