Authors
- Morse, Brenna L. PhD, FNP-BC, NCSN, CNE, PMGT-BC, FNASN
Article Content
Slight variations in clinical parameter reference ranges can undermine student confidence in being prepared to take examinations and lead to faculty receiving many clarifying questions and emails. For example, a medical-surgical textbook may list chloride as 97-107mEq/L,1 but pathophysiology and fundamentals texts report 97-105 mEq/L2 or 98-106 mEq/L,3 respectively. Assurances that examination items do not rely on marginally out-of-range values or that reference ranges will be listed may not settle student worry. Faculty are encouraged to adopt a program-wide set of clinical value norms formed from a single course textbook or use the parameters of a local hospital. Once adopted, students could study and commit these values to memory, instead of feeling that they must memorize new reference ranges in each nursing course. This collaborative faculty action takes little time but can have a large impact on student stress related to examination preparation.
References
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