I finally took my CCRN exam today and passed it after procrastinating it for more than a year. The CCRN is a certification exam for critical care nurses, the test is administered by American Association of Critical Care Nurses or AACN. It basically verifies your knowledge about critical care concepts after working in acute care setting for 1750 hours within the last two years. Its a 3 hour exam. 150 total questions 25 items are experimental and not included. You only need to get 87 correct answers to pass the test.
I’ve been out of general medical-surgical ICU for about 5 months, so the anxiety of me taking this test doubled up. Transitioning to Cathlab helped me gain more knowledge about the cardiovascular system. The 2 ICUs I’ve worked for didn't really gave me experience I needed for the exam. So reading and studying about Swan Ganz Catheters, PAOP, SVR, PAP, PAD, PAS, PVR were all Chinese characters to me. I had to dig deep down on my resources, read and understand every thing and watch lecture videos. To all my friends who works in CVICU y’all have greater chance and lesser sweat of passing this exam as majority of the exam were on the Hemodynamics of Cardiovascular System.
I studied for about 6 months. The first 4 months were nothing serious - just studying in and out. No motivation to study better because I haven't registered for the exam. If you are planning to take this exam, I strongly suggest that you register now, this will help you set up a goal. Once registered and approved for CCRN Exam you have 3 months to sit for the exam. I registered in the first week of May and decided to take the exam before the end of June. I still have another month to take the test but I just decided to take it sooner and just suck it up whatever the result maybe. To be honest I got tired and burnt out of studying every day I was off and every day after work and just wanted to move on with my life.
With that being said, I want to share how I passed the exam first try and I know you can too!
Here are my 9 CCRN exam tips.
Schedule the test. Do this to set a deadline otherwise you will keep finding reasons to put it off. Just do it. This is the best advice I can give you. Just schedule it! If I can pass it you can too! Do it now!
Focus on Cardiovascular system (20% of the test) and Pulmonary System (18%) If these topics are your weakest spend time reading Chinese like what I did. Know hemodynamics inside and out. I found myself drawing arrows up and down during the test to figure out which problem were they asking and what medication to give. There were questions where they will just give you hemodynamic parameters and you’ll figure out if this patient is in cardiogenic shock, hypovolemic shock, pulmonary hypertension etc. Also for Cardio I got asked for heart murmurs (a lot! Mitral Regurg, Aortic Stenosis location of murmur and treatments), EKG’s- which leads you look for ST segment elevations and reciprocal changes, MI’s, also know preload and afterloads medications, also understand IABP - I think I got confused with the inflation and deflation - I know it deflates at the onset of diastole, but what if its not on the choices? Make sure you understand the principle of counter-pulsation. Make sure you study IABP, working in General- Med-Surg ICU to be honest when was the last time I took care of a patient on balloon pump? NEVER!
Don't get too hung up in pharmacology. And I thank God I did not spend a lot of time memorizing all the drugs in the world. We’re not doctors or pharmacist. Just know your inotropes, beta blockers, diuretics and your pressors when to use and not to use it. I found myself choosing fluid boluses instead of giving drugs I have no clue about. I somehow nailed the Cardiovascular portion. lol
ABG’s and Vent settings. Know the difference of SIMV vs. AC mode. Again ABG’s a lot of them! Know it by heart and you will not be lost- what vent settings, increase rate or decrease for a given ABGs, increase PEEP for ARDS. Blah blah blah. Pulmo was easy. Don't sweat too much about it. SWEAT WITH THE HEMODYNAMICS OF CARDIOVASCULAR! STUDY SWAN GANZ!
The lowest score I got was from Collaboration, Systems Thinking and Clinical Inquiry. I found the choices were too confusing. All choices sounded right. Maybe I did not understand the question or I chose the answer where I fix the problem myself rather than collaborating with physician, chaplain, RT. Thats the difference with NCLEXy type of questions where I was told not to pass the bucket to another healthcare provider. But for experienced nurses collaboration is the key.
I used Barrons CCRN Exam book for the most part (Pic below). This book is easier to understand than the PASS CCRN. I bought the PASS CCRN book more than 2 years ago and never really studied it. Its loaded with too much information. I only use it when I need to dig deep down on a topic I don't understand. The practice exams on PASS CCRN book were 10X harder than the actual exam. Don't beat yourself up when you don't score well in the practice test. They are designed to be harder and more complexed.…. I also highly recommend Nicole Kupchick’s Ace the CCRN practice questions. If you have kindle on your phone or kindle itself you can download that book for free. The phrasing of her questions were similar to the one on the exam. Barron’s and PASS CCRN practice test were hard!
Watch Laura Gasparis video’s on you tube. She’s a great lecturer and her videos helped me a lot to remember normal values and signs and symptoms of a disease. Don't buy the 300+ dollars DVD’s they’re all available on you tube. Don't rely on her videos 100% some of her lectures were outdated.
Five days prior to exam do mental aerobics. Answer 150 questions in one sitting everyday and do rationale. I spent 5 to 6 hrs a night doing this. I only had 9 mins left when I finished my exam I spent the last 9 mins checking on the questions I bookmarked. I changed some of them and did not regret changing them. You have 3 hour to finish the test. You have an average of 1.2 minutes per question to answer. If you dont know the answer, just guess it and bookmark it, you can always go back to it later if you have more time. Dont let that question eat up your time.
My first 15 to 20 questions were a little bumpy. I was at number 24 and I already spent about 45 minutes, that prompted me to speed up my game. I keep remembering to answer 50 questions each hour. I know I have studied enough for the test and covered all the contents, so when I see question I have not covered on my review (I remember Hemophilia A was asked- It wasnt on my review) its probably one of the experimental one so dont spend too much time for it. By the end of the exam I was already getting the feeling that I may pass the exam - because I felt like I’ve seen the questions before from my practice exams. I’ve done about more than 1000 questions prior on taking this with 3 books combined.
9. Dont underestimate Professional Caring and Ethical Practices content. I’ve seen testimonials on you tube where they did great on cardio and pulmonary system but this topic threw them off. It’s also a good chunk of exam. There’s a lot of questions on ethical dilemmas, unit policies & literatures.
Thank you for reading this, I hope it will help on your future test. And if I can help you with anything please let me know. I am so willing to lend you all my study materials and study guides I formulated. Just message me. :)
Arkee Blu BSN, RN, CCRN
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths - Proverbs 3: 5-6