My top 5 resources as a nursing student

As I have just finished my first term as a student nurse at ARU and as I am preparing for my first placement, I have listed some of the resources I have found helpful during my studies in hopes that they may also help any future or current student nurses. I have included a wide variety of resources that cover both the theory and practical side of the course.

1. Google Scholar- Whilst writing my essays I heavily rely on google scholar to find relevant and reliable information on the topic I am researching. It is important when you are writing university level essays to use sources that provide accurate information, most journals and articles are scholar level and peer-reviewed adding extra reliability.
2. RCN library- whilst researching for my recent essay I found useful articles using the RCN library, the library allows you to filter through its resources such as showing up journals, magazines or books. It also allows you to filter for peer reviewed work only to ensure your using accurate and up to date information.
3. Nexusnursing on TikTok- Nexus nursing is a TikTok account that posts short informational videos for nursing students including practise exam questions and then provides detailed explanations of why a certain choice is the correct answer. I have found her videos very useful as they are short, so doesn’t take a lot of time to complete but although they are short, they contain a lot of really useful information. I would highly recommend any nursing students to follow her to improve their knowledge on patient care and numerous conditions.
4. NHS website- the NHS website contains a broad range of information such as symptoms, diagnostic criteria and treatment/management of many conditions. This is really useful as a student nurse as it allows you to investigate for yourself many conditions which you might encounter along your nursing journey. It also contains an A-Z list of medications and gives details on what the medication is and the uses of the medication, common side effects, who is allowed to take the medication and commonly asked questions about the medication. Having this information so readily available is invaluable as a nursing student as it allows you to educate yourself on medications your patients may be taking.
5. The NMC code- the NMC code is a set of professional standards laid out for nurses, midwives and nursing associates. As a student referring to the code frequently helps you to maintain the codes values whilst training so that when you qualify, these values have become ingrained within your practise as you need to follow the code to be registered within the UK. Patients’ safety is of the highest priority as healthcare professionals and the code helps protect this through its values.