Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time (aPTT) — the must-know coagulation lab value for the NCLEX, covered in 5 minutes.

In this episode: what aPTT measures, the normal reference range of 25-39 seconds, what a prolonged aPTT means, causes including factor deficiencies, hemophilia, liver disease, vitamin K deficiency and heparin therapy, the critical value of greater than 70 seconds, how aPTT compares to PT for identifying clotting factor problems, and nursing considerations for patients on anticoagulants.

Keywords: aPTT, activated partial thromboplastin time, normal range, reference range 25-39 seconds, prolonged aPTT, heparin monitoring, critical lab values, coagulation factors, clotting factors, hemophilia, von Willebrand, liver disease, vitamin K deficiency, anticoagulants, NCLEX lab values, nursing labs.

FREE DOWNLOAD: Get the 63 must-know lab values to pass the NCLEX at https://nursing.com/63labs — the free study guide every nursing student needs before test day.

New episodes of Lab Values in 5 drop every Tuesday.

Welcome to Med of the Day — new episodes drop every Monday. It's Med Monday!

In this episode: Amoxicillin (Moxatag) — an aminopenicillin anti-infective that inhibits bacterial cell wall synthesis. Used for respiratory and skin infections, sinusitis, endocarditis prophylaxis, and Lyme disease. The must-knows: always assess for penicillin allergy before giving it, watch for anaphylaxis and skin rashes, know the seizure risk, remember it's renally excreted so monitor BUN and creatinine, and report bloody stool immediately.

Download your FREE cheatsheet of the 50 most commonly prescribed medications: https://nursing.com/50meds

Hydrocodone/acetaminophen (Norco) is one of the most common meds you'll see for moderate-to-severe and post-op pain. In this MedMaster episode: therapeutic and pharmacologic class, how the combo lets you use less opioid, mechanism of action at opiate receptors in the CNS, and the nursing must-knows — monitor for hypotension and respiratory depression, never exceed 4g of acetaminophen in 24 hours, and keep Narcan (naloxone) in mind as the reversal agent.

Get your free download of the 50 most commonly prescribed medications — the must-knows for the NCLEX and real life on the floor: https://nursing.com/50meds

It's 2am, the care plan is due at 7, and a nursing student types into a chatbot: "explain preload and afterload like I'm five" — because asking out loud just feels expensive. All over the country, students are having their most honest learning conversations with a machine, and everyone's debating whether it's cheating. Wrong debate. Jon Haws RN asks the more useful question — why does asking a machine feel so much easier than asking out loud? — and delivers the honest guide: the green zone (tutoring, practice questions, explainers), the yellow zone (AI is confidently wrong — verify anything that would touch a patient; care plans; know your program's policy), the red zone (integrity, borrowed understanding, and the HIPAA rule that can end a career: never paste real patient information into AI, ever), and the office-hours script that brings your questions back to the humans. Then the question only you can answer: is the understanding actually YOURS yet? Find out free — start a SIMCLEX at SIMCLEX.com, first 15 questions on us: true adaptive engine, every Next Gen item type, the most realistic mirror of the real thing that exists. Free Green-Yellow-Red screenshot card in the show notes. Keywords: nursing students using ChatGPT, is it cheating to use AI in nursing school, AI care plans nursing, ChatGPT nursing school policy, how to use AI to study nursing, HIPAA AI nursing students, free NCLEX simulation.

Twenty-five years ago today, rows of gurneys stood ready outside St. Vincent's Hospital — and stayed empty. Most of you listening weren't born yet. So today: no study tips, no advice, nothing to sign up for. Just the stories that belong to this profession now — the hospitals that stood ready, the largest patient influx in American hospital history at a small downtown hospital, and the nurses we lost: Captain Kathy Mazza, the OR nurse turned Port Authority commander who shot out the North Tower's glass walls so hundreds could escape, found five months later beside the patient she refused to leave — alongside Stephen Huczko, a fellow nurse-officer. Touri Bolourchi. Jean Hoadly Peterson. Lydia Bravo. Christine Egan. And the nurses still caring for 9/11 responders and survivors, twenty-five years later. This is not a history lesson. It's a handoff.

Somewhere between first semester and pinning, relationships end — the supportive boyfriend, the childhood best friend, sometimes the fiancé — and every cohort knows it and nobody says it out loud. Jon Haws RN says it out loud: why nursing school strains relationships in ways nobody warns you about (it doesn't just take your time — it changes your availability as a person, and growth and leaving look identical from the outside for a while), the three-question sort that separates relationships struggling to adjust from the ones showing you who they always were, and the actual scripts: the 20-minute weekly state-of-the-union, the answer to "you've changed" that has saved relationships, the voice-memo friendship downgrade, and the one artifact to hand family who "don't get it." Grieve what falls away. Don't apologize for growing. The most personal episode we've ever done. From NURSING.com. Keywords: nursing school relationships, nursing school breakup, boyfriend doesn't understand nursing school, losing friends in nursing school, nursing school changed me, dating in nursing school.

There's a parking lot outside every nursing school in America, and in it, right now, a student is crying — convinced she's the only one. She's wrong. Jon Haws RN names the most universal unspoken ritual in nursing education: why the car (the first private space after hours of performed composure), why almost everyone does it and nobody says so (the silence IS the culture), the difference between normal release tears and the signal tears that mean it's time to get backup, and the two-word text — "parking lot" / "same" — that has carried more students through nursing school than any study guide. Every nurse you admire has a parking lot. The difference was never the crying. Note: this episode touches on student mental health; if you're struggling, in the US you can call or text 988. From NURSING.com. Keywords: crying in nursing school, nursing school stress, nursing school mental health, is nursing school supposed to be this hard, nursing student burnout, emotional exhaustion nursing school.

It's the night before nursing school. The scrubs are laid out, the bag is packed — and around 10pm the thought shows up, the one you haven't said to anybody: "What if I'm not smart enough? What if they made a mistake letting me in?" After twenty years and hundreds of thousands of nursing students, Jon Haws RN says the things nobody says out loud: why you didn't sneak in (admissions doesn't make sentimental mistakes), why feeling behind on day one is the design and not your deficit, why your "before" life — waiting tables, the office job, motherhood — counts as arriving with skills rather than starting from zero, why your reasons don't have to be noble, what to do when people in your life get weird about your growth, and why showing up scared counts completely. No study tips tonight. Just the truth, the night before. Save this episode — play it before every semester. From NURSING.com. Keywords: night before nursing school, starting nursing school scared, am I smart enough for nursing school, nursing school imposter syndrome, first day of nursing school, career change to nursing, nursing school as a mom.

In 2003, detectives hunting one of the most prolific serial killers in American history needed something they didn't have: someone who could read an ICU medication log. The case came down to Amy Loughren, a night-shift ICU nurse. Jon Haws RN breaks down what she actually did as a clinical skill set — reading the data behind the patient, trusting a pattern over a person, speaking up inside a culture of silence, and being competent at 3am when nobody's watching — and why every one of those skills is what nursing school is building in you right now. Plus: the new true crime podcast from the NURSING.com team, MURDER ROUNDS — the healthcare killer cases told with real clinical insight, starting with the full Charles Cullen story. Follow Murder Rounds wherever you listen. Keywords: Amy Loughren, Charles Cullen, The Good Nurse true story, nurses who caught killers, nursing assessment skills, Murder Rounds podcast.

Start NURSING.com for free at: NURSING.com

It's 0645, you're outside the unit, and your brain is forty open tabs. The next five minutes decide whether today is a shift or a shipwreck. Jon Haws RN shares the exact 5-minute pre-shift routine he ran before every ICU shift of his career — and taught every student he precepted: Minute 1, the story (why is this human in this bed today?). Minute 2, the numbers that matter for THIS patient. Minute 3, lines and meds. Minute 4, three real questions that change how the whole building treats you. Minute 5, the one thing you verify with your own eyes. Plus the near-miss that created the routine, the night-shift variation, and why competence is a system, not a talent. FREE printable checklist card in the show notes — sized to fit behind your badge. Keywords: nursing clinical preparation, pre-clinical checklist, nursing student clinical tips, how to prepare for clinical shift, nursing report sheet, clinical day routine.

#nursingclinicals #nursingstudent #nursingschool #clinicals #studentnurse #futurenurse #nursingschooltips #firstclinical #nursetok #brainsheet #newnurse #rnstudent #nursingschoolhacks