NARRATOR: In this program, Dr. Terry Buttaro, associate professor of practice at Simmons School of Nursing and Health Sciences, discusses the importance of pathophysiology for the advanced practice nurse. Lets listen as she provides her insights to this course.
DR. TERRY BUTTARO: So advanced pathophysiology is definitely a difficult course. Theres a lot of memorization as you go through this course, really trying to understand things at the cellular level how do organs function? What happens, for example, when that organ stops functioning, whether its because of an infection or a malignancy? But if you dont understand this, if you dont kind of learn, not only the normal, but definitely that pathophysiology part, as an advanced practice nurse, then youre not going to be able to really put the picture together when someone comes in.
So for example, understanding what the liver does is really important when somebody comes in with abdominal pain or anorexia, because you have to figure out, well, what could this be? So you have to get that history about, well, when did this start? Does it happen all the time? Are there other things going along with this?
And then, when you do your physical exam, you have to understand, well, not only where the liver is and what it does, but what else do you have to look for in the physical exam to determine if there is a problem with the liver. And thats not only the liver, because the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone. So every organ affects another organ. So its essential that we understand that.
And it does require a lot of work. It does require a lot of work. But what you want to do is have this really good understanding about each system so that when somebody comes in, you might not remember exactly, but something clicks. And you say, maybe its this. And then you can go look it up to see, well, what diagnostics do I have to do?
And truthfully, advanced pathophysiology takes from health assessment so that when you learn how to do a really good health assessment and good history, and then a good physical exam, you take the important data from the history and from the physical exam, and you put that together. And you say, you know, this doesnt look so much like the liver. This acts more like the stomach. And thats how you work out your differential.
And its not that theres every one thing. We all want to keep our minds open to the different pathophysiologic processes in the body to be sure that were not attributing one disease to a patient when it could be something else. So we have
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to keep our minds open. So thats why its important. You cant only learn one system. You have to learn all the systems.
Online learnings a little bit different than when you actually go to school. It really requires that a student is able to pace themselves and study frequently, because its on their own time. And so in some respects, online is really great, because you can do in your own time. You dont have to travel. You can do it at midnight if you want. Ive had students before who do some aspects of online when theyre at lunch at work, because they have a little bit of quiet time. And that works out well.
But you also get distracted easily, because you can be home. And theres tons of distractions at home. So you have to really focus. And you have to study every week. And this is true for all education.
Learning this information is complex. So people certainly have to read, but reading isnt enough. You have to figure out how you learn best. Are you a visual learner? Are you an auditory learner? Hopefully, you get a little bit of both. And that will help you.
I think using the online system and discussing questions with your fellow students is really helpful. You can say, you know, I read this, but this doesnt really make sense to me. Why does somebody have heart failure? Whats the difference between systolic and diastolic? I dont get that. And so another student who might actually be working in a cardiac unit might be able to explain it better in clearer terms to you than the book does.
The other thing is probably making note cards is really important so that you can study in free moments. That can be helpful. Sometimes, podcasts or just actually recording what the highlights are so that you could listen in the car, that can be helpful, too. But its really understanding that you cannot let it go to the exam, that learning has to occur every single day.
And for the most part, I would say to students, when the week starts on a Monday, first, look over the outline or the PowerPoint that is available to you online. Then go back and do the readings. And if theres any kind of exercise, do those exercises, because those exercises are going to help you figure out, well, did I really learn that, or do I have to go back?
And then have a few notes. You dont have to take copious notes. You dont want to do that. You only want to take notes on what you dont understand. But what you dont understand in either advanced pathophysiology or pharmacology, you want to write something a little quickly.
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So what I usually tell students they absolutely have to know is, so what would the patient complain about with this? What do you have to look for in the physical exam? What are the diagnostics that might be done for this disorder?
And then, what are the medications? Whats the pharmacological treatment that a patients going to need for this disorder? And what are you going to have to teach the patients?
So if you can kind of figure out a kind of a formula for [INAUDIBLE] learning about whats the clinical presentation, whats the physical exam, what diagnostics go along with the heart failure, for example, what are the medications treated, that will help you. But you also have to know whats the basic pathophysiologic process for that disorder, because if you dont understand that pathophysiologic process, youre not going to understand how the drugs were going to give fix it.
So if somebody comes in with heart failure, you know that their heart has failed in some way. Thats all it is. The pump is not working the way it should be. But when the pump doesnt work well enough, the lungs fill up with fluid, and the patients short of breath, and their oxygen level goes down. So how do you get rid of that fluid?
Well, the first medicine, or one of the first, is usually a diuretic. So what are you, as a nurse, going to look for first? Youre going to give that diuretic, that furosemide.
Then youre going to be listening to the lungs to see, is it getting better? Is their breathing getting better, is their oxygen level getting higher, is their respiratory rate going down? Its because youre going to be watching them.
And then theres many other things. Its not only one simple thing we do. But its putting that whole picture together.
And when youre studying, whether its pathophysiology or its advanced pharmacology, you should be trying to have this picture of your patient in your mind. What does this patient look like? Whats going on? How am I going to treat them? And then, how am I going to evaluate the treatment?
So its really picking out the clinical presentation for that patient what do they complain of and then thinking about what the pathophysiologic process is. And it really is trying to figure that out at the cellular level.
What happens when a patient has cancer? What happens? So lung cancers, for example, they start 30 years often before a patient comes in with symptoms.
So I had a patient come in a couple weeks ago who complained about back pain. And when I asked her about the back pain, she said, well, you know, Ive had this
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for about six months. It wasnt too bad in the beginning. But its really right across my back here. And I said, well, did you ever smoke? And she said, yeah, I smoked for about 30 years.
So Im thinking to myself, what could cause this? What causes that kind of pain? It wasnt pain when she moved. So then thinking about, well, what could happen in that area?
Is it the spinal column thats causing this? But she didnt have any numbness and tingling in her arms. She didnt have a problem with moving her arms. She didnt have muscle pain.
So then you have to go really way back more to the cellular level, what organs are there. So really, its kind of the lungs and the muscle and the spinal column in the back. Thers not a ton of other things.
So you need to figure out, well, how am I going to figure out what this is? And I couldnt think of a lab test. But an X-ray would at least tell me, well, are her lungs OK? And the X-ray would also at least show what her spine looked like. So thats why its so important to kind of think about pathophysiology and understand whats happening