Author · 113 posts
RN · Medical-Surgical nurse & health writer
Meet Nathan, a registered nurse with over five years of experience in Medical-Surgical care, based in New York City. Having worked with a wide range of patients through some of their most vulnerable moments, Nathan brings a grounded, real-world perspective to his writing on healthcare. His goal is simple: to bridge the gap between medical knowledge and everyday understanding, making health topics feel less intimidating and more empowering for everyone. When he's not caring for patients, Nathan channels his passion for medicine into writing that educates, comforts and inspires.
The TNCC (Trauma Nursing Core Course) from the Emergency Nurses Association is the international standard in trauma nursing education, earning a four-year provider verification that many EDs and trauma centers require. Here’s what it covers, who needs it, exactly how the exam and skills station work, renewal, and the prep habits that produce first-pass results.
Learning the top 200 drugs does not mean forcing hundreds of disconnected names into your head. Group them by drug class, learn the suffix stems (‑pril, ‑olol, ‑statin) and one prototype per family, and the whole list falls into place. Here’s a high-yield reference of ~30 classes with prototypes, adverse effects, nursing considerations, and how pharmacology shows up on the NCLEX.
A travel nurse salary isn’t really a salary — it’s a package: a taxable base hourly rate plus tax-free housing and meal stipends that only count if you keep a real tax home. Agencies advertise the two blended into one weekly rate, which is why it looks bigger than staff pay. Here’s how to decode it, the tax-home rule, and where the high pay actually is.
UWorld has dominated NCLEX prep for a decade — but reputation isn’t a study plan. This honest review digs past the marketing: what the QBank, rationales, and NGN coverage actually deliver, where UWorld falls short, how many questions to do, the pricing, and whether it’s genuinely enough to prepare you on its own.
The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) is nursing’s highest clinical degree — practice-focused, not research-focused, and a launchpad into advanced practice, leadership, education, and health policy. Here’s what a DNP is, how it differs from a PhD, the careers it opens, the BSN-DNP and MSN-DNP pathways, how long it takes, and whether it’s worth it.
The TEAS (Test of Essential Academic Skills), made by ATI, is the pre-nursing entrance exam most US programs use to screen applicants. ATI TEAS 7 has four sections — Reading, Math, Science, and English & Language Usage — and tests academic readiness, not nursing knowledge.
How hard the TEAS feels comes down to how recently you've used high-school reading, math, and science. It tests academic readiness, not nursing knowledge — so most applicants find Science (anatomy and physiology) toughest, with separately timed sections adding pressure. All of it is prep-responsive.
The ATI TEAS 7 has 170 total questions across four sections — Reading (45), Math (38), Science (50), and English & Language Usage (37) — and includes 20 unscored pretest items. That leaves 150 that count toward your score. The TEAS isn't adaptive, so everyone answers the same number.
The ATI TEAS 7 math section is 38 questions in 57 minutes on a basic on-screen four-function calculator. It tests high-school-level algebra, ratios, unit conversions, and data — not nursing dosage math. Master the high-frequency topics and the calculator rule and it becomes predictable.
The ATI TEAS 7 science section is 50 questions in 60 minutes, with only 44 scored across anatomy & physiology (18), biology (9), scientific reasoning (9), and chemistry (8). A&P alone is 41% of the section — so prep body systems first and treat the physical sciences as targeted review.
TEAS practice questions only raise your score when you use them well. Drill by section, weight your time to your weak areas (often Science and Math), and treat the rationale — not the raw score — as the actual lesson. Full-length tests build pacing; use current ATI TEAS 7 material.
There's no single national TEAS test date. When you can test depends on the channel: ATI online with rolling availability, a PSI testing center, or your nursing school's own administration — each with its own calendar. Compare all three, book backward from your program's deadline, and book early.