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Don’t worry – I’ve been there – you’ve got a new Study Bunny and I’m here to help you get it all under control.

My name is Jessica, I’m an emergency room nurse and former school teacher, and I love teaching and sharing what I learned – especially when it was learned the hard way.

Everything I am about to share I did myself. I went to nursing school late in life – it was a huge career change. I placed a lot of pressure on myself to be successful because I had walked away from a career in education. I felt I had put a large amount of financial-pressure on my husband to support our family of four while I pursued my dream of being an RN. Needless to say, it had been ages since I went to college, studied, or had to think critically – who knew if I could even do it?

People are not exaggerating when they say that nursing school is hard. But now I see it has to be.

The bedside has shown me that the things I do, the things that I am expected to know, can be the difference between life and death. Nursing school will hone you into a safe nurse that can think critically about their patients, prioritize activities, and deal with difficult situations and people, all the while keeping it cool and professional.

I wish I could say that your teachers in nursing school will be AMAZING – that all you need to do is show up to class with a good attitude and the rest will follow. Unfortunately, many nursing school professors are AMAZING nurses, but not necessarily AMAZING teachers. The truth is that teaching is a science and art form – in fact, it is a whole other degree. Add to the fact that professors are teaching adult learners – we (adults) learn out of necessity and practicality – but the content your learning won’t be practical until you are a practicing nurse. However, you cannot be a practicing nurse until you master the content – it’s a vicious circle. Adult learners just want to know what we need to know, why we need to know it, and how to learn it.

Don’t despair – Your Study Bunny is here to help make it all better. Each of these hacks has so much value alone, but when they are practiced together it will be a true game changer for you. I can’t wait to hear about your success in the comment section.

Let’s get started.

HACK #1: TAKE STRATEGIC BRAIN BREAKS

Don’t roll your eyes!

Taking study breaks a.k.a. “Brain Breaks” is wildly underestimated. There are decades of research that prove that taking time to have mini-rest session increases productivity and helps with comprehension, not to mention creativity- in other words taking breaks is essential to learning and you need to step away from your workload to help the learning bind to your brain.

As a former classroom teacher, I can attest that students who went out and play for recess versus kids that had to stay in for recess are more focused and more productive – I’ll fight anyone that thinks otherwise. Brain breaks or movement breaks can truly transform your ability to learn, retain and recall information.

With time, your brain breaks will have you operating on a work/reward system that helps you keep time, keep energy and focus high, and make you feel rewarded for the hard work you put in.

There are no hard/fast rules when it comes to brain breaks – just do what works for you – here are some classic options:

25-minute study session / 5-minute break

30-minute study session / 5-minute break

45-minute study session / 10-minute break

50-minute study session / 10-minute break (my favorite – because it marks a perfect hour)

60-minute study session / 15-minute break

Brain breaks should take place before you get distracted, sloppy, fatigued, and inattentive.

The bottom line is that you are not a machine. You are not doing yourself any favors by white-knuckling through for hours and hours without taking a mental or physical break.

Your mental break should be a true break and it should not cause you to be further distracted during your next study session.

Ideal Brain Breaks:

HACK #2: READ WITH A PURPOSE

Nursing school involves a great deal of reading and nursing school does not care if you are a good reader or if you hate reading. It would be a little absurd to expect the teacher to put everything you need for your future practice in a PowerPoint – you’re going to have to read to know all the things.

Yes, you have to read in nursing school. But you don’t have to read every page of every book from cover to cover. Your textbooks will SERVE you well – they better – we all know how much you paid for them. Start looking at your books as useful instead of scary and cumbersome. Your books have all the information you need to be successful, you just need to know how to use them and what to do with what you learned.

On an aside, you should also know that all Textbooks are generally the same. For example, we had to read the 14th Edition of Brunner & Saddarths Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing and I was not a big fan. I found that Lewis’s Medical-Surgical Nursing: Assessment and Management of Clinical Problems, Single Volume 11 was easier to read and understand. The thing you need to understand is that the content is all the same – what changes is the way the information is presented and organized. The pathophysiology, diagnostics, and medical management never change. Just make sure your texts are not so old that they are out of date.

 

Before Reading Activities

1. Refer to the tools your Professor gave you: Syllabus, Reading List, PowerPoints, etc.
2. Both the syllabus and the chapters will have LOs – Learner Objectives – they often come as a question or a statement (see below). This is what you need to be able to do to perform on your exam. This is the blueprint that your professor is using to write their exam questions – your professors design their lessons with the end in mind – the exam is the end. This is called backward design and this is how teachers decide what to cover to prepare their students for the exams. Put simply – you need to be able to do the LOs.
3. Think about the Course Subject – how you take notes for Medical Surgical will not be the same as Pharmacology or Health Assessment – the same goes for how you will read each book.
4. Make a list of your pages/chapters/topics so you can mark them off as you complete them.

During Reading Activities

• Pay close attention to how the chapters are organized.
• Look at the headings, subheadings, and bold-faced words.
• Don’t ignore the charts, tables, and diagrams.
• Define unfamiliar terms in the moment and commit to knowing that word from now on.
• Some texts offer tip boxes or high-risk clues – these are usually golden morsels.
• Get active while you read by making an effort to underline, circle and highlight as you read.
• Consider color coding your highlighting – this helps keep you engaged with the text and helps you find the information easily – this can also translate to your notes and care maps (see below for an example). Never do this in class – you will mess up and look crazy.
• Take breaks – studies show that your mind benefits from brain breaks – of course, every brain is different. Find your sweet spot – mine was 50 minutes of work, and 10 minutes of break.

 

Questions To Ask Yourself During Reading

• Does this make sense?
• What does that mean?
• What does that look like?
• How is this the same as or different than XYZ?
• What is normal for this topic – what is abnormal?
• What does the nurse have to do?
• How does this relate to MNOP?
• If X then Y?

You may not be able to answer all these things as you read, but you now have good questions to ask the teacher during lectures. Professors get paid to talk and teach – and honestly, sometimes they don’t know where the educational gaps are. Your professors are the experts, but sometimes they may not have all the answers and this is okay. Your questions have value and they can show you the learning process because nurses are constantly learning new things – at least, the good ones are.

After Reading Activities

• Reflect – What did I learn? – How can I organize the information? – What is still confusing (i.e. You need to ask the Professor)?
• Organize the information using your note-taking format of choice (more on notes later on)
• Graphic organizers
• Electronic notes
• One-Pagers (my personal favorite)
• Writing and organizing information is LEARNING! Trust me, I’m an educator 🙂

HACK #3. RETHINK YOUR NOTE-TAKING STYLE

Notes Rule #1: Write Your Notes Using Nursing Shorthand

You need to start talking the talk, walking the walk, and saving your hands because writing and typing are tiring. We speak and write differently in the medical field and it’s high time you start learning it and incorporating our special shorthand jargon into your notes. Doing so will prepare you for your future practice, and make your notes easier to read, write, and remember. It’s a win/win situation.

Click this link (RN Shorthand Lined Paper Memo)for my FREE nursing shorthand cheat sheet and get started right away.

Notes Rule #2 & #3: Adapt Your Notes to the Content & Use the An Appropriate Format

My notes change depending on the course I am reading and writing for. Sometimes my notes just really needed a new look. I often used graphic organizers for my skills or health assessment classes. The Tree Map is wonderful for helping to see the big picture and the Venn Diagram can really help you see the similarities and differences between two things.

Bottom line is that your notes should not be the same format for every class – that is crazy talk and blasphemy.

My notes for Skills class are WAY DIFFERENT than my pharmacology notes and yours should be too! I like to keep things simple so I use what I call One-Pagers every chance I get.

What is a One-Pager?

A One-Pager is a place where all the information you need on a topic or topics gets fit into ONE Ride or Die page. Imagine having all the information you need to learn on just one page. Yes, I’m being serious. My One-Pagers were so good I can actually remember how they looked all these years later and still reference them as a nurse today.

Settle down kids because I’m about to blow your study world apart.

• When making a One-Pager, you need to use a format that includes only categories you feel are valuable – Reduce the topics to the BIG IDEAS you need to know to understand the topic.
  • Don’t worry If you feel like you’re not sure if you can decide which categories or big ideas are needed right away.
  • This was trial and error for me and I was able to figure out the BIG IDEAS for you.
  • I have premade one-pagers on my Etsy shop if you need a template right now. Click here to purchase my Medical-Surgical One-Pager or click here to purchase my Pharmacology One-Pager.
• Use your nursing shorthand so they are easy to read and not so full of words, words, words.
  • Examples of nursing shorthand:
    • BP = Blood Pressure
    • HR = Heart Rate
    • up and down arrows denotes low or high / hypo/hyper
    • chemical symbols for electrolytes or LYTES as I write
    • CHF = Congested Heart Failure
    • NS = Normal Saline
    • ABX = Antibiotics
• Revise your notes – they can always be made better and they were only on one page so it won’t be a lot of work.

This sounds harder than it is and trust me – this is going to help you internalize the information.

_{This activity is really powerful when you do this with your tribe (more on that later) on a big whiteboard and then each of you writes your One-Pagers based on the whiteboard discussion. Each of your notes will be a little different – some people are more artistic – some people need less repetition – but man does this boost your study sessions, and retention and it suits many learning styles.}

BUT THERE IS MORE – once you get used to it, your notetaking becomes effortless, and dare I say fun.

One-Pagers also help you to remember the information better because you can see it in your mind, and you recall the way you structured the page. Additionally, if all the information fits on one piece of paper it will be easy to rewrite and revise it (more on that later).

Trust me when I say having a note-taking system – having a clearly defined way of learning the information so that you can 1.) Understand the content 2.) Study in a timely matter and 3.) Pass your exams because you truly understood and recall the information is PRICELESS.

I was so happy when I created my Med-Surg One-Pager Template. My template made learning fun and effortless. I would place information from the following sources:

• My Textbook
• Lecture
• Videos – I love Sarah from Registered Nurse RN
• Saunders Comprehensive Review NCLEX-RN Examination – SO GOOD
  • You can purchase this book on AMAZON HERE
• Rationales from practice questions – I liked to sprinkle these on after the notes had already been written – and I usually used a different color so I could know it was learned the hard way i.e. I probably got that question wrong or it just blew my mind.

My One-Pager for Med Surg had the following Categories:

• Title w/ definition of condition
• Etiology
• Pathophysiology
• Risk Factors
• Signs & Symptoms
• Labs & Diagnostics
• Medical Management (Surgical and Non-Surgical)
• Nursing Assessment / Interventions
• Medications
• Patient Education
• Worse Case Scenario

Don’t laugh at my notes y’all! My Med/Surg One-Pagers helped me earn all As in all 3 Med/Surg courses. They started off on graphed paper but later became the spiffy templates on my Etsy shop.

As you can see I am a visual learner. I drew most of the patients to the best of my ability. I can still recall how my patient drawings look to this day. Notice how I put both SIADH and DI on the same page. You can do one for each and then do both in your revision. I did this all the time! It really makes your mind understand how and why disturbances of the same part of the body can cause wildly different outcomes.

I have since made a One-Pager that is digital so it can be used again and again. Click here to purchase my Med Surg One-Pager Template PDF on Esty.

Now One-Pagers are not a one-size-fits-all, but they are highly adaptable to all the topics you can imagine. You simply have to reduce the topics to the Big Ideas. Take a look at the One-Pager I use for my Pharmacology classes. The titles were made of classes of information I needed/wanted to know for my course and my future practice.

The way I see it, giving meds is a big part of the work a nurse does, so I wanted to make sure that I would know the meds well enough to pass my course, but also to give them medications safely on the day-to-day and educate my patients naturally.

If you would like to purchase my blank pharmacology one-pager template it is available for sale on my ETSY shop as a digital download. You can print the template and handwrite the notes yourself. Click here to purchase my Pharmacology One-Pager on ETSY.

Notes Rule #4: Revise Your Notes to Perfection

You need to revise your notes. Period.

This will be easy because you are using your nursing shorthand right? You are only writing pertinent information – keeping it simple with bullet points. You are getting information from multiple areas i.e. your textbook, lecture, and videos. Especially if you have taken my advice and started using One-Pagers to write your notes 🙂

Revising your notes will help you recall and retain the information. I usually did my final revision after meeting with my tribe for a study session. We would get together at the library and go topic by topic on the whiteboard to discuss, argue, and clarify. Once it was all out there on the whiteboard we each did our notes in our own style – but they were always One-Pagers. This portable whiteboard allowed me to write out my notes again and again – the repetition was very good for my study style.

HACK #4: FIND A TRIBE AND STUDY SMART

I did not know the power of a good tribe effort until nursing school. I have always been shy and introverted. I preferred to work alone. I detested group work my entire life, but in true form, Nursing School changed me and my practices. My tribe was made of other loners – we each thought of ourselves as a lone wolf, but when we came together we knew we had become a pack – and our wolf pack was AWESOME. Two minds are better than one and so on – right? As your Study Bunny, I highly advise you to find your tribe and study SMART.

You probably noticed that it is impossible to read all the things and take all the notes on your own. I learned that a few weeks into Level 1. I could never seem to make time to read for my skills class -which is a problem since nurses do these skills all day every day. One day it occurred to me that I, and all my friends, needed to read the same information and it just clicked! What if I was in charge of reading and writing notes for Foundations, Luz did the reading and notes for Skills, Yari could do Pharmacology, and Elijah could read for Health Assessment? If we each read and wrote BADASS notes using our shorthand, simple notetaking system – we could actually manage to pass.

Simply put – we divided and conquered nursing school. We are each working as RNs and are still best friends to this day.

I have fond memories of living in the school and public libraries. Throwing our notes on the whiteboard, discussing, clarifying, quizzing, then revising our notes. It just worked because we knew we could rely on one another. We knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses and we capitalized on them.

My advice to you is to find your tribe and work SMART.

HACK #5: WATCH VIDEOS

I jokingly tell people that YouTube taught me everything I know.

I’m not joking.

Complete list of my YouTube Teachers:

• Sarah w/ Registered Nurse RN – My Best Friend!
• Simple Nursing
• Gail Lupica – Fabulous content
• Armando Hasundungen – great for the visual learners
• KhanAcademyMedicine
• Osmosis
• AllNursingNotes
• MedSimplified
• Mometrix Test Prep
• Crash Course – Great for A&P
• Mint Nursing
• Medcram

All jokes aside. There is a lot of value in watching videos especially if you are a visual learner.

HACK #6: PRACTICE QUESTIONS ARE GOLDEN

Practice questions are just as important as reading the material. These questions are testing to see if you can think like a nurse if you can see potential issues, if you can prioritize patient complaints, and if you understood the important things. You don’t want to find out that you don’t understand things on the day of your exam. Don’t worry about the grades you get with the practice questions. Worry about the concepts you are missing and make sure you spend time reading through the rationales.

My program had specific programs that we could use but I really liked using the questions from the Saunders online platform. There are a lot of apps and websites that have excellent test banks with phenomenal rationales.

My suggestion is that you do practice questions daily – even if it is only 10-20 questions a day – it will do you more good than you can imagine.

Comment your NURSING SCHOOL HACKS below. I would love to hear from you.

Godspeed.