Category Archives: How-To

Critical Appraisal Questions for Evidence-Based Practice: Is the Study Necessary and Are the Results Valid?

Critical appraisal skills are essential for the nurse, regardless of role or clinical expertise. I introduced you to the topic of critical appraisal in evidence-based practice (EBP) in the last blog post. I provided the purpose of critical appraisal and overviewed the steps of critical appraisal. In this post, I’ll

How to Choose a Theory for Nursing Practice

All undergraduate nursing students take a nursing theory/nursing philosophy course. Masters and doctoral students take advanced courses in theory. What’s the point? To use theory for nursing practice, of course! Many students wonder about the purpose of nursing theory — and just theory in general. Is it just an academic

How to Figure Out Your Personal Philosophy of Nursing

One of the most common assignments in nursing school is to help students articulate their personal values and beliefs about their nursing career — in other words, writing a personal philosophy of nursing. In this post, I share some tips to help you consider how to uncover your true values

How to Identify Assumptions, Beliefs, and Values in Nursing Theory

Assumptions, beliefs, and values are terminology used when describing the foundation of nursing theories. Theories are used to describe, explain, and predict nursing phenomena, that is, the nursing metaparadigm concepts. Nursing theory is the theorist’s worldview or personal perspective of how the nursing world works.   Understanding the theorist’s assumptions, beliefs, and

Productivity Hack: Tips for Taking Better Notes

All month I’ve been giving you tips on productivity and time management techniques. This post is all about taking notes. Whether you are in school or at work, there is probably many a time where you may need to take notes to capture the salient points of a lecture, a

Productivity Hack: Schedule Work and Focus!

A great habit to get into to make your juggling of school, work, and life go more smoothly, is to Schedule Everything! In quality improvement, the saying is, “What gets measured gets done.” In nursing, we say, “if it wasn’t documented, it wasn’t done.” Well, it’s the same idea is

Multitasking Does NOT Increase Productivity!

Last week, I talked about daily, mainly electronic, distractions keeping you from focusing on your work. That post may have resonated with some of you – I know I struggle with turning off distractions and multitasking, too. I want to continue on the theme of obstacles to productivity and talk about

Expert Advice: Eliminate Distractions to Stay Focused

Email. Twitter. Blogs. Instagram. Facebook. Podcasts. TV. Video games. Text messages. Telephone calls. Google. YouTube. Smartphone apps. SnapChat. CandyCrush. “Surfing the Web.” What does each of these things have in common? They are distractions keeping you from doing the work you need to get done. Yes, distractions – while you

Seven Tips to Help You Prepare for Your Nursing School Admission Interview

Original post: August 29, 2017; Edited 9/26/21 Readers, I’ve had the full-text of this post available free since 2017. I truncated this post because I have this and other information about applying to nursing school collected for you in one valuable 44-page resource – my eBook. Please scroll down to

Five Tips for Writing Your Nursing School Application Essay

Original full-text post: August 21, 2017; Edited 9/26/2021 Readers, I’ve had the full-text of this post available free since 2017. I have since truncated this post because I have this and other information about applying to nursing school collected for you in one valuable 44-page resource – my eBook. Please

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