Instructors LOVE to use case studies in nursing school, but they can be SUPER tricky to figure out!
They’ll also show up a lot on your nursing exams, where they’ll give you a case scenario question and you’ll have to choose the best answer based on the info they give you.
So I’m going to give you the BEST strategies to help you rock your case studies in nursing school.
HERE’S A BREAKDOWN OF WHAT WE’LL TALK ABOUT:
9 critical thinking questions (0:58)
The nursing process (3:30)
Prioritizing patient needs – ABCs (6:07)
Prioritizing patient needs – Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (7:26)
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
In this video, we’re diving into how to study using CASE STUDIES. Instructors LOVE to use case studies in nursing school. They’ll also show up a lot on your nursing exams, where they’ll give you a case scenario question and you’ll have to choose the best answer based on the info they give you. But they can be SUPER tricky to figure out sometimes! So I’m going to give you the BEST strategies to help you rock your case studies in nursing school. So hit that subscribe button and click the notification bell and let’s dive in.
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So the first thing you need to know about case studies in nursing school is that they’re meant to test your critical thinking.
But don’t freak out, critical thinking is a LOT easier than you’re thinking right now. There’s only 2 parts to it:
- Planning ahead
- Connecting the dots
That’s it.
If you want a deep dive into those 2 things, be sure to check out this video here.
Now, I have a list of critical thinking questions that will really help as you’re working on answering your case study questions in nursing school. They will help get you in the mindset of figuring out what’s going on with the patient, and what you need to do about it.
I’ll go through them with you here, but don’t worry, I’ve listed them all out on a free cheat sheet for you that you can print off and use as your work on your homework and case studies in nursing school. The link is in the description below for you to download it.
So these 9 key questions are:
- What do I need to assess and look for with this disorder? (Which includes lab values and signs and symptoms)
- How does this disorder impact a patient without comorbidities? (meaning, this is the ONLY health concern, disorder or disease they have)
- How does this disorder impact a patient WITH comorbidities? (which means, they have ANOTHER health concern, disease or disorder at the same time)
- What interventions are most likely to be ordered by the doctor? What would you expect to see ordered for this patient, including medications and lab draws?
- What interventions are within my scope of practice as a nurse to do without an order? So what can you do as the nurse to help this patient get better, things like position changes and patient education, things like that?
- How do these interventions impact a patient without comorbidities? So how would that medication or position change or other intervention impact the patient and their condition?
- How do these interventions impact a patient with co-morbidities? So ask yourself how that medication or position change or other intervention impact the other illnesses the patient has.
- What patient and family education needs to occur?
- And what other disorders or problems are commonly associated with this disorder?
These critical thinking questions will help guide your critical thinking as you go through your case studies. So be thinking about each of these questions as you answer your case study questions in nursing school.
So now that you’ve elevated your critical thinking skills by using those 9 key critical thinking questions, the next step is to answer your case study questions correctly. Of course, we want to get them all correct, right?
And there are 2 things you should focus your attention on:
- Walking through the nursing process
- Prioritizing patient needs
Let’s start with the nursing process and how to apply it to a case study question.
Often times, your case studies will ask you a series of questions, like:
- What would you do to help the patient improve?
- What would you look for and assess with a particular patient?
These are all questions that relate to the nursing process:
- Assessment
- Diagnosis
- Planning
- Implementation
- Evaluation
They’ll ask you what you should look for (meaning the nursing assessment), what you should do about it (meaning what interventions and implementation should be done), or what nursing diagnosis or goals you would make for the patient.
The nursing process is EVERYTHING in nursing school; you’re walking through it all the time. And answering case study questions is no different. Even though the questions may use different language, like “what would you look for” or ” “what’s the best course of action,” you should always be thinking about how it fits into the nursing process, and that will make it a whole lot simpler for you!
Now another HUGE thing you should focus on is prioritizing patient needs, and there are 2 ways to do this that we’ll talk about here.
But before we get to that, I want to give a shout out to Nurse Z for our YouTube comment of the week, which says
“This video came right on time. I start my 3rd semester today! Woohoo! Thanks hun, super helpful.”
YAY! Congrats on starting your 3rd semester that’s so exciting!! I hope it goes super well for you!
Thank you so much for all your sweet comments and your constant support. I feel so blessed that you’re here right now and I get super pumped each week to help you through nursing school! So keep your comments coming, friend!
Alright, so the 2 big strategies you should use to prioritize patient care and answer your case scenario questions correctly are:
I’m going to walk you through how to use these 2 strategies to answer case scenario questions right. But if you’re a NursingSOS Member, be sure to log-into your dashboard and check out the Fundamentals Course, where we have a whole video training for you on patient prioritization. I also walk you through some practice case scenario questions in there as well, which will help it all click and come together for you. So be sure to check that out.
So ABC stands for airway, breathing and circulation.
These are your top 3 priorities when doing patient care, and when you’re answering case scenario questions. You need to make sure your patient has a clear airway, you need to make sure they are breathing adequately, and you need to make sure their blood is flowing and circulating.
If one of these isn’t happening, it’s game over, right? So that’s why the ABCs should be your top priority.
So often times when you’re faced with a case scenario question, it might ask you what your “priority” nursing action would be, or what your “initial” or “immediate” action would be.
When you see this on your exam, the first thing you should think about is the ABCs. Look at each answer to the question and ask yourself if any of them relate to the ABCs: anything that that keeps the patient’s airway clear, keeps them breathing, or keeps their blood circulating.
So if you identify an answer like that, go back, re-read the question to make sure that answer makes sense. And if it does, PERFECT! That’s the answer I would choose.
The same thing goes for Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Here is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in order of priority:
- Physiological needs
- Safety and security needs
- Love and belonging
- Self-esteem
- Self-actualization
It makes it really easy to follow, because they are already listed in order of priority. This hierarchy means that you will need to solve a patient’s physiological needs FIRST before you focus on their other needs, like love and belonging and self-esteem needs.
Physiological needs include things like making sure they can breathe and that their blood is circulating properly.
Safety and security needs include things like making sure their IV tubing is out of the way and they can’t trip on it, and making sure their bed is in the lowest position and they have their call light. This also refers to things like being financially secure and having secure relationships. Those are all safety and security things.
Love and belonging needs refer to the patient’s connectedness with others, and if they feel like they have people who care about them.
The self-esteem tier is the need to have confidence in themselves and their abilities and that they believe in themselves and have a sense of accomplishment.
And self-actualization means that they are achieving their full potential and striving to always become better.
Looking at this hierarchy, it makes sense how they are prioritized, because if a patient can’t breathe (which is a physiological problem), we want to fix that problem first before we help them feel loved and connected with people.
So as you’re answering your case scenario questions, figure out how Maslow’s Hierarchy fits into it. Where is the patient in this hierarchy, and how can you help them move up the hierarchy.
These are all the critical thinking aspects that your nursing instructors are testing you on when they give you a case scenario question. They’re looking at how you take all the information they give you, and draw conclusions and make decisions with it.
Now, the biggest KEY to remember when answering case scenario questions is patient safety. Patient safety is ALWAYS your number 1 priority. So if there is something you can do to keep the patient safer, that’s most likely the answer your instructors are looking for.
In a few weeks, I’m going to be releasing a video all about why med-surg is so hard! I know case scenario questions play into that, but there’s a lot of other factors too. We’ll talk about why it’s hard, and I’ll also give you my BEST TIPS to overcome it and rock med-surg, even though it’s super tough.
So don’t forget to hit the notification bell to get notified when that video is available. It’s one you DO NOT want to miss!
Now make sure to like, comment, and share this video with a friend.
And 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.
