Straight A Nursing: Study for nursing school exams & NCLEX

Has learning pharmacology ever made you want to throw your pharm flashcards or your reference drug guide across the room? Instead of trying to memorize every single possible thing you can about a drug, start by focusing on the most important things that affect your nursing judgement and medication administration. If that sounds way more manageable to you, you'll like this episode.

In this episode, you'll learn:

- 3 distinct must-know things that influence your nursing judgment and medication administration for the following commonly seen drugs, grouped loosely by body system:

CARDIAC: Digoxin, Warfarin, Heparin, Metoprolol

RENAL/ENDOCRINE: Furosemide (Lasix), Spironolactone, Metformin, Insulin, Levothyroxine

RESPIRATORY, IMMUNE, & INFECTION: Albuterol, Prednisone, Vancomycin

NEUROLOGICAL & PAIN: Lithium, Phenytoin, Morphine

- How to see the patterns that make pharmacology click

🧠 If you like thinking in patterns and having a systematic way to build things into your memory and your habits, that's the approach I walk through in the Nursing School Survival Blueprint. It's free, and it'll help you build this same kind of thinking into how you study everything in nursing school, not just pharmacology. Get the Blueprint

💊 Fast Pharmacology - Learn pharmacology concepts in 5 minutes or less in this audio based program. Perfect for on-the-go review!

💕Did you love this episode? Please take a moment to follow or subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode…and share with friends so you can help other nurses thrive!

___________________

The information, including but not limited to, audio, video, text, and graphics contained on this podcast are for educational purposes only. No content on this podcast is intended to guide nursing practice and does not supersede any individual healthcare provider's scope of practice or any nursing school curriculum. Additionally, no content on this podcast is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Straight A Nursing is a proud member of the Airwave Media Network.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hit play to tackle a concept that helps explain a whole lot of things in nursing, from edema and ascites to pleural effusions and pulmonary edema. You guessed it - it's fluid shifts.

___________________

⁠Nursing School Survival Blueprint⁠ - Feeling overwhelmed or unsure how to approach nursing school? Download this free Blueprint to understand exactly what's working against you — and what to do instead.

Straight A Nursing Study Resources⁠⁠ - ⁠Check out everything Straight A Nursing has to offer, including free resources and online courses to help you succeed!

💕Did you love this episode? Please take a moment to follow or subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode!

___________________

The information, including but not limited to, audio, video, text, and graphics contained on this podcast are for educational purposes only. No content on this podcast is intended to guide nursing practice and does not supersede any individual healthcare provider's scope of practice or any nursing school curriculum. Additionally, no content on this podcast is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Straight A Nursing is a proud member of the Airwave Media Network.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Review the nursing basics for Tetralogy of Fallot (ToF), a cyanotic congenital heart disease. It is characterized by four key defects which together, allow oxygen-poor blood to be pumped out into systemic circulation leading to hypercyanotic episodes called “tet spells.”

In this episode you will learn:

The four key defects that characterize ToF:

Pulmonary stenosis

Right ventricular hypertrophy

Ventricular septal defect

Overriding aorta

Physiological consequences of these defects

Complications of the condition

Signs and symptoms

Key assessments and diagnostic tests

Nursing interventions and other treatments

What to teach parents

Read the article and view references here.

Nursing school gets easier when you have a system to help you identify what to focus on as you study. I get you started building that system in my free Nursing School Survival Blueprint, where I share the key shifts you can make which separate struggling students from thriving ones.

👉 ⁠Download the Blueprint⁠

This is a throwback to episode 206 of the Straight A Nursing School Podcast, where nursing school help is at your fingertips with hundreds of episodes covering your journey from taking the TEAS through passing NCLEX and having success as a new-grad nurse.

💕Did you love this episode? Please take a moment to follow or subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode…and share with friends so you can help other nurses thrive!

___________________

The information, including but not limited to, audio, video, text, and graphics contained on this podcast are for educational purposes only. No content on this podcast is intended to guide nursing practice and does not supersede any individual healthcare provider's scope of practice or any nursing school curriculum. Additionally, no content on this podcast is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Straight A Nursing is a proud member of the Airwave Media Network.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Test your knowledge of prone positioning nursing care with this quick set of audio flashcards. Dive right in or brush up on your nursing knowledge of prone positioning first, in episode #521: Prone Positioning Basics - Preventing Complications in ARDS.

These mini-reviews are a great way to study on the go, and they give you a taste of what it’s like inside Study Sesh, my audio study tool for busy nursing students.

🧠 Ready to quiz yourself? Let’s dive in!

👉Want more practice like this? ⁠Check out Study Sesh!

💕Did you love this episode? Please take a moment to follow or subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode!

___________________

The information, including but not limited to, audio, video, text, and graphics contained on this podcast are for educational purposes only. No content on this podcast is intended to guide nursing practice and does not supersede any individual healthcare provider's scope of practice or any nursing school curriculum. Additionally, no content on this podcast is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Straight A Nursing is a proud member of the Airwave Media Network.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prone positioning can be so intimidating when you're a nursing student or a brand-new ICU nurse. In this episode, I'm covering the basics and potential complications of prone positioning so you actually understand why we do it, rather than just feeling like you’re trying to keep up.

Imagine walking into your patient's room and finding them lying on their stomach instead of their back. They are intubated and sedated, with cushions tucked around their face, chest, and hips, and the monitor leads are sitting on their back. It’s startling if you've never seen it! But it’s also one of the most effective nursing interventions we have for critical care patients fighting ARDS or severe respiratory distress (I saw this a ton with COVID-19 patients, too).

Hit play to review what you actually need to know about prone positioning for your nursing school exams, clinicals, and NCLEX, including:

What is prone positioning? The "why" behind the pathophysiology and indications of prone positioning

Awake Prone Positioning (APP)

Two ways to prone a ventilated patient (Roto-Prone beds vs. the manual "burrito method")

High-risk nursing complications to watch for

Preventing unplanned extubation: Safety checks used to protect the airway during a turn

Protecting skin integrity: Crucial nursing interventions for pressure injury prevention

How to approach urgent situations with limited access, including emergency response steps and CPR in the prone position

Why you should take advantage of hands-on training whenever it's offered

Current evidence-based practice guidelines you'll see in the ICU

FREE CLASS - If all you've heard are nursing school horror stories, then you need this class! Join me in this on-demand session where I dispel all those nursing school myths and show you that YES...you can thrive in nursing school without it taking over your life!

🎧 #137: The Basics of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS)

🎧 #64: Atelectasis Nursing Interventions

🎧 #46: V/Q Mismatch Explained Simply

🎧 #488: The Perfusion Problem

💕Did you love this episode? Please take a moment to follow or subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode…and share with friends so you can help other nurses thrive!

___________________

The information, including but not limited to, audio, video, text, and graphics contained on this podcast are for educational purposes only. No content on this podcast is intended to guide nursing practice and does not supersede any individual healthcare provider's scope of practice or any nursing school curriculum. Additionally, no content on this podcast is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Straight A Nursing is a proud member of the Airwave Media Network.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices