Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This is the all one nurse podcast, where we are bridging the gap between the stethoscope and the soul and getting back to the human side of healthcare.
Powered by riverside question, what makes anyone a nurse?
A nursing license. Welcome to another impactful episode of all one Nurse, where I'm your host, Nurse Chanel, and I have a wonderful guest with me today, Miss Susanna Valdez, with 22 years of nursing experience and your next GN tutor, who has successfully helped many students pass in class, as evidenced by her testimonial. Welcome, Miss Susannah.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Yes. For my listener, I want you to lean in as we dive into Miss Susannah's professional journey, her educational insights with a huge focus on NClex, what it is, and her services. And I even have a resource at the end of this podcast episode as well. So let's get right into it. How are you, Miss Lucy?
[00:01:27] Speaker B: I'm good. I'm so happy to be here with you. You're so inspirational for those listeners out there. Chanel is just amazing. You should listen to her. She is nothing but positivity, and she will completely and totally lift up your day. And if you're having a bad day, she makes it better.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: Well, thank you for that. Thank you.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: That is the truth.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: I don't even know what to say after that. I don't even know. Okay, let's get into the first question. Thank you. I am so humbly grateful for that. Okay, tell us, what's your origin story like growing up?
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Okay, so, growing up, I grew up in a small town. And I guess what kind of led me into medical stuff was I used to be in band. I begged my parents to quit. And I had an older friend. She was like a year ahead of me, and she was in this thing called Hosuh, like, health occupation students of America. And that's where I first, like, when I was little, I wanted to be a doctor. And then, you know, I got into Hosuh, and then we would go around. I was in a small town, but I had a really good experience. I was in it for two years. We would go around to all the. We went to the hospital. I went to the vet's office. I went out with him to, like, you know, see some baby calves and stuff like that, watched some surgeries, went to the ER, went to the doctor's office, and I just really discovered. I was like, wow. Like, I really like the medical field. And during that, I was able to get. We all did our CNA license. That's back when it was just called CNA. And so I got my certified nurse aides license and passed my state test. And then I was like, I. I really kind of think I want to be a nurse. And so from there, I went to college, and I went to blinn, and it's close to a and M, and I did my prerequisites there. And I was there for two years, and then I went to the University of Texas medical Branch. This is really good nursing school here in Texas. And, yeah, that's where I started my journey. It was, you know, one of the hardest things I've ever done, but totally worth it. And when I was 21 years old. Oh, my gosh. That feels like so long ago.
I graduated with my BSN in nursing.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: And that's kind of where it all started. Awesome.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: I actually wanted to do not CNA, but just be a patient care assistant without the certification. When I was going through nursing school, and my cousin, who was already a nurse, she was like, no, don't do it. I guess because I was already in the program. But I thought it was interesting that you did your CNA and then progressed on into your BSN.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: I never actually used it. My parents wouldn't let me work. But, I mean, I think it helped me when I was in nursing school, because then, I remember everyone would get real nervous when we had to do the manual. Blood pressures. Everyone's like, oh, my gosh. How do we do this? And I already knew how to do it, so I already had, like, a little bit of confidence with the. When it came to, like, the floor stuff, the clinicals. I thrived in that environment, and I loved it because I already knew how to do it. And I like people. I talk a lot, you know? So I did well with that. The part that I always struggled with Washington, learning how to study in nursing school. And I don't think I learned that until about my third semester. That was, like, a really big struggle. I was never an A student.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Hey, I say see your way through.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: I know that's right. Because when you get finished, nobody's gonna. Nobody's gonna hire you. And look at your grades. It's just whether or not you have that nursing license or not, that's all that they're gonna care about if you pass your Nclex exam. That's it.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: That is true. So what would you say your. Your biggest motivation was coming through nursing?
[00:04:51] Speaker B: My biggest motivation? I just have a lot of perseverance. That's what I always tell my students. I have a lot of perseverance. And when I want something really bad, I'll just keep going at it until I get it. I mean, there were times when it was very difficult. I remember the third semester, I was actually taking three classes and two of them I failed the midterm in. And I'm like, no, I haven't come this far to fall flat on my face. And I was like, I'm going to do what I need to do. And I think it wasn't until then that I learned how to really study. But I remember my mom used to tell me she's not with us anymore, but my mom used to say this thing to me and she used to tell me this story, like how we went to the state park and she said I was probably around four years old and we were going to horseback ride. And I was on the horse with my daddy. And she kept saying that. I kept insisting on taking the reins. And my dad's like, no, sweetheart, like, let me take them. Let me hold them. And finally my dad gave in and gave me the reins. And whenever I would have a hard time in nursing school, my mom would tell me, that's what you need to hold on to. Don't let go of those reigns. That's your strong point. You're stubborn. When you really want something, you don't. She's like, you don't let it go. You don't give up on it. So just with those reigns, that's the same way you got to be in nursing school. And I guess that's just kind of been something, that's kind of been a theme in my life with whenever I've wanted to do something that's difficult is that when things are hard, instead of kind of walking away from them, it kind of makes me more persistent and so I just want to do it more.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Oh, that's good. That's inspiring. I've never rode a horse, though, but that is very inspiring. It is. Thank you for sharing that.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: Now tell us a little bit about your nursing journey.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Oh, that's a big one. Okay. So when I finished nursing school, I stayed in Galveston. And it was just like this small little children's hospital. I worked on the 6th floor. It was a hematology oncology floor. Had a really small, like, oncology population. But I took care of a lot of sickle cell patients. I love taking care of the sicklers. I got really close with a lot of my patients. And then I took care of, I got so much well rounded experience there. I took care of a lot of different surgical patients, and then that's when they used to let you float more. And that's before they got kind of strict with floating in the hospital. So I used to go to the NICU, and I go to the feeders growers room. That's the babies that are stable. They're not vented, but they're, like, on feeds, and they're in incubators or an open bassinet. So that's a cool experience. Newborn nursery. Hated that. I was, like, doing those pkus at night. Those babies, they look like stuck pigs when I was finished with their heels.
But I did that, and then I would even go to pick you, and they would just give me, like, a stable patient that they were ready to discharge out. And then I would go to our neuro unit sometimes, and then I would go to our med surg unit, and that's where I started out. And then I decided I had this big dream, and I was like, I think I want to do oncology. That that wasn't the dream. I went to md Anderson for about three months, and that was. That dream quickly dissipated, and I was like, okay, I don't like this. It was. It was sad, and it was. It was a lot more chemo than what I thought it was going to be. And I figured out that I'm not real big on chemo. I don't like chemo very much. It's. It is scary, and you gotta be really careful with it. So then I kind of went back with my tail between my legs. I went back to my hospital, and I stayed there a couple more years. Then I did clinic nursing for about nine months. I worked at a Kelsey Siebel clinic. I worked with two pediatricians. That was a different experience. I did a lot of labs and stuff and phone calls, a lot of education of that sort. But I missed the bedside. And when I went to go back to the bedside, I didn't want to go back to the med center. I used to live in Houston, and so I ended up. I'm kind of crazy. I went and I did med surg, but that was a good experience. And I worked with a lot of lvns. Oh, they have such good experience, and they are so smart. They taught me so many things, and I did that. And then I moved to a different hospital, and it was privately physician owned, so it had, like, lower ratios, and I learned a lot there. I was the charge nurse, and I did. I was downstairs on the surgical floor, and so I took care of a lot of total knees, total hips. I did terps. I did a laparoscopic cholecystectomies. And I like surgical nursing a lot, and I like ortho, too. And so that was a good experience. And then probably about 16 years ago, yeah, I moved here to San Antonio, and then that's when I started working at the children's hospital of San Antonio, and I worked there for quite a while. That was a wonderful experience. Really good group of girls over there did nursing together, and we did a lot of what was called titanium rib implant surgeries. These kids come from all over the United States. Now the hospital doesn't do it anymore, but we were one of the few. And I've never seen so many different syndromes in my life, like Martha syndrome. Some of them had dwarfism, but it was really neat to work with them because they would come in every six months, and you built a good rapport with a family, and again, a lot of surgical patients, spinal fusions. And then that's when I learned to take care of Benson trachs. I had always been scared of those, so I started taking care of those, and those made me nervous, but it was good because the parents were there, but they were stabilized, but we had a lower ratio, and I got comfortable with those. So that was like a fear that I got to overcome. I never liked ICU and all the beeping and stuff. And then after that, then I did school nursing. For almost seven years, I did school nursing, and that was an interesting experience, too. You have to be very autonomous to be a school nurse. And you see a lot of crazy things. Crazy things. Like, one time this kid came to me and he was playing basketball, and he ran into the basketball tool and. And his tooth came out, and it. I swear, it looked like a. It looked like a tiger tooth. It was huge. So you put it on milk. You put it on milk. You call the parent and you tell them, take them to the dentist, and they. They put the tooth back in. And. Yeah, one time I had a kid who had a ring on her finger, and I couldn't get it off, and I had to call the fire department to come cut it off. So you just. School nursing is a whole nother animal. You never know what you're going to see with that. And it's like running a little mini triage clinic. You see some, you think that you're not going to see things, but if you get good experience in the hospital and you're looking to transition out of the hospital, it's a good place to go good hours, you get summers off. So if you have children, you know, you're with your kids and everything. It was a good job, it's a good experience.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: What made you transition from hospital to school? Nursing?
[00:10:56] Speaker B: The things that my hospital were like really starting to change and we got like this contract with Baylor and then it didn't work out the way that it was supposed to. And I'll be honest with you, it really wasn't a change that I wanted to make at the time. I was getting canceled a lot. I wasn't getting my hours and so I kind of had to switch over to it. And just being like real transparent, that's a kind of a blessing in disguise that about six months before I decided to get divorced and I couldn't have worked those twelve hour shifts. So everything kind of happens for a reason. But it was a, it was a good, it was a good experience. I didn't want to leave the bedside at the time, but sometimes you get that little kicking behind from that you need and that was kind of what I needed and that was the direction I needed to go to. And I don't think I would have been able to go to graduate school and do what I did if I had still been like working in the hospital. So it wasn't something that I readily chose. It turned, it turned out to be a good decision. I learned a lot. I learned a lot of different things. I mean, it's just accumulation of a lot of well rounded over, you know, the past 22 years.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: I left the bedside. God decided to bless me with more kids. And of course Covid happened and then I also had my masters in education as well. So tell me more about your masters, senior masters in education and nursing school.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: I always tell my students, you can do anything that you want to do. You have to have the perseverance and be willing to work at it, have a lot of grit. When I started going for it, at first I was going to do my nurse practitioner and then I kind of realized I'm a single mom now and that's not really what I want to do. I don't want to be at the office writing long notes.
And so I was like, you know, I really like teaching. I had always loved precepting. I was always one of the ones that would precept in the hospital when I, when I did school nursing, I floated for a year and a half and then I had schools and I went back to floating, but I would be the person that they would send if the clinic was in a mess, and I clean it up. And then when the new nurse came in, not a brand new nurse, but someone new to school nursing, I would teach them everything. I show them the setup of the clinic. Kind of set your clinic up this way. This is how you do this. And then we do have electronic charting with that. So I showed them how to do that, how to input stuff, teaching them how to do, like, vision and hearing screenings. You have to be certified to do those. You have to be scoliosis certified, and acanthosis certified as well. And so I did a lot of teaching with that, and I liked it. So when I started thinking about it, what led me down that road was I wasn't really feeling challenged enough, and I was. I wouldn't say that I was bored. I think I wanted something more, and I really wasn't sure what that was, but I knew that I wanted to do something else. But it was scary because I'm a single mom. I was working full time, and I went to grad school. I started in April of 2019, about a year before COVID hit. And then I continued during COVID and the school. Once the pandemic hit, we didn't go back. We would just have meets in the morning, which actually was probably a blessing in disguise because I was taking some super hard classes. I took one that was an accelerated three week class where I had to do a couple of head to toe assessments. Yeah, that. That was rough. So it just kind of turned out well. And then, because I was a school nurse, I was able to finish in two years still. And I just did my preceptorship without having to miss a bunch of work. I did it in the summer when my daughter was gone with her father. I finished it up in, like, a month. I wanted to get done. And then I graduated, like, in August 2021 with my master's degree. Yeah.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Awesome. What did you start doing after you got your master?
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Well, okay, I'm gonna be really honest, and I'm honest with my students about it, too. I actually did a lot of COVID tracing, and Covid has. Covid has impacted all of us, I think, as nurses, like, in a different way. But the way that it impacted me was not in a positive way. A lot of training. The tracing that I did for me, it was very mentally exhausting. It was very extensive. It was like looking at cameras on the bus, looking at cameras when the kids ate. If we did isolation and stuff and quarantine, I had to go in and ask the teachers all these questions. I had to have them show me the seating chart at the same time. They were asking you who the kid is. And I'm like, it's HIPAA. I can't tell you that stuff. And after a while, I don't know if you remember, but in 2021, that's when CDC dropped the guidelines. They dropped the isolation from ten days to seven days. And so I had done the tracer course, and I was just thinking, we're going to have all these kids coming back into school. And honestly, I mentally broke a little bit. Like, not just a little bit. Like, I broke a lot. And so I actually think, like I say, things just happen for a reason, you know? And so I just think my body had just kind of had enough. I was just mentally fatigued and exhausted. And I actually. I didn't work for a year. I just took a year off and had to figure out what I needed to do with myself. And then when I got back into it and I started looking for jobs, I actually couldn't find a job. I was so frustrated. So if there's anybody out there listening, and it's like you're having a hard time and you're. You're trying to get a job as a nurse or you're trying to get a job with your masters, don't give up on yourself. It can. It can be frustrating. The job market has changed a lot, especially since the pandemic. Right. Things have gotten a lot tougher. And so I kept applying for jobs, and I'm like, but I work so hard for this degree and I'm not going to use it. But things, whether you believe in God or you believe in a divine power, you don't. Things work out a way for a certain reason. They just do, you know, that's just. That's just the way that things are. I believe that things are already predestined. And so I just. I couldn't find any job, so I started tutoring, and I didn't want to tutor because the pay wasn't so great. I thought I was too good for it. Everything that I've ever thought that I was too good for always turned out to be like a blessing in disguise. So I started doing the tutoring, and then that's what kind of led me into the NCLEx tutoring. I was tutoring at first, and I was doing different subjects. I was doing pediatrics.
I had one student that was failing ob, and I never thought I'd teach Ob. And I'm like, okay, I'm just going to take this dive. I'm going to do it. I'm going to learn it. I'm going to understand it. I mean, that's basically what, you know, from working in academia. They'll stick you in some classes, usually something, you know, that you have experience in, but sometimes, you know, they like to stick you in med surg. And so you got to know a lot of different things. And it's the same thing with the tutoring. I had to just. I had to teach it to myself so I could teach it to my students. And I ended up really loving Ob. Cause I had had, like, a pretty problematic pregnancy. So now that's, like, one of my favorite things when I nclick studio, that's one of my favorite things to teach the students is Ob because of the personal experience that I had. And then just, like, teaching it to my student, then my student ended up coming to me, like, when she was already failing. So then I taught it to her again. So we got that down, like, real path.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: That's awesome. Keep going. Tell. How do we get to next gen?
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Okay. So then after that, I had this student, and I'll never forget, and he needed an Nclex tutor. And I'm like, okay, I'll nclex tutor him. I'm gonna be straight. The first time I did it, I sucked. I sucked, like, real bad.
And I was like, all right, now I was like, I'm gonna be NcLex tutoring these students. I gotta figure this out. So I had someone that was mentoring me, and she's on TikTok and Ig. She's really nice. She works in academia, but she NcLEx tutors. And so she gave me some pointers. And then I did a lot of research. That's what I do. I learned in grad school. My strong point was I'm really nerdy. I like reading nursing journals. Like, you know, when we had. Yeah, when we had to write all those papers and stuff, I really got into that stuff. I really like writing evidence based stuff that are based off research. In fact, I'm good with that. I wouldn't be a good novelist or anything, but.
But I just started looking at things and investigating for myself. And she gave me some pointers, too, and she lended a helping hand to get me started. So I worked really hard at it. I started actually doing the NCLex questions myself, and then I taught myself how to break them down on my own. I would kind of look for pointers sometimes on the Internet. There's nothing out there. There's not a certification for it. So it's self taught. Like, it's really like a baptism by fire. You just have to figure it out. And so that's what I did. And I just kept working really hard at it. And then I looked on national council, I'm like, okay, let me see what this is. And I was like, this is the way that they test them for NCLEx. They test them on the client needs areas. A lot of nursing students, they don't know that they graduate, and they're out here in the water, and they're just kind of floundering. They're trying to keep their head above water. They don't know how to study for Nclex. And it's nothing rude to anyone, like, you're in academia. I think maybe we need to touch more on it in academia, because so many of the students tell me that they didn't tell us that in nursing school. I know some of my colleagues have told me that I didn't know that. And I'm like, yeah. So I just started doing that. And then somebody planted a seed one day. The student was disgruntled, not with me, but about the tutoring platform I was working on. And I was like, well, you have to have a Q bank. You can't. How are you going to study if you don't have a Q bank? And then she goes, you know what? You seem really good at this. And she goes, you ought to have your own website. And she planted the seed. And I kept thinking about it and thinking about it, and then I get nervous. I'm like, no, no. And then I went on Godaddy, and it took me about two months to. I would do it just a little bit of time, and I did a little bit more. And then I guess, like, April a year ago, I published it and I put it out there, and then I started opening up and doing things on TikTok. I really wasn't doing it too much on IG at that point, but the way I started getting students was, is when I would tutor on these other platforms, the students liked what I had to say, and then I was like, can you give me a testimonial? And of course, when I put the testimonial up there, it has a star on the website, so it tells you that I tutored them on another platform, so I'm not being dishonest about that fact.
And then I made it official. I took the plunge, and I took it to a lawyer, and I was like, I need to make an LLC this is the business name. I want the next generation tutor, LLC doing business as the next gen tutor.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: And.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: And he's like, okay, I'll get all the paperwork for you. He put everything together for me, and we made it into a legal business. That's how it came. I named it that because I thought that would attract students, because that's what the test is called now. It's called NGN. Next gen, next generation nclex. And so that's why I named it that. I remember at the time, Lauranda, she's the one who had mentored me, and she's like, grab it. She's like, grab that domain. Like, right now, she's like, take it before anybody else gets it. And so I just kind of took a chance and did it. Yeah, that's how it came to be.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: That is so awesome. And speaking of so your own, your domain name is znextgentutor.com.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: Yes. It's HTTPs, colon, forward slash, forward slash, thenextgentutor.com. yes. And now it's new. We got that up running in January.
Had a friend help me. He's a. He does ux graphic design, and he actually designed the logo that says the next gen tutor with the little books and stuff. And then he redesigned the site for me. And all those pictures, I really wanted it to look authentic, since that's my journey, and that was a really hard journey. All those pictures are my pictures from graduate school. And I had my daughter do, like, a photo shoot with me because I call my daughter my biggest cheerleader, because my daughter supported me all the way. That was, what, 2021 when I started. So I think my daughter was probably eight or nine. And she'd always be like, mommy, how much longer till you graduate? And then she got to watch me walk across the stage when I was 40, and I just told her, you can do anything you put your mind to. I'm 40 years old, and I just got my master's degree. So whatever you to do in this life, and I tell the nursing students that, too, you're capable of it, you just have to be willing to put in the time and the effort. You have to be willing to persevere and really work hard. You can't give up on yourself. So that's why I use those on the website, because that represents my journey. On the main page, I have that plaque. I need to put it up here in my office. But it was like, could, should, would. And then it was like, did. And I love that.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: That is so awesome. I actually, that's how we kind of connected. Where I was working on my Allone nurse blog, and I was looking for resources for my website, allone nurse.com, and I was like, nursing students need tutors. And I was like, let me look up some tutors. And so I actually did a code email to you.
And so my email, and I felt bad because once I looked at your video of your why behind tutors, and you were explaining how nurses do, they planted the seed, and I was like, oh, my God, I should have waited before I emailed you just to see about your business and how successful you were. And even in your reply, you just really explained how it takes both parties. You have the tutor and the coach and the student. And so you just said a lot about your why, your passion for doing what you're doing, and I just commend you for that. But even just going to your website and looking at your testimonials, I have two here that I did want to talk about. And the first testimonial is by Niecy. And she said, after attempting my NCLex once and not being successful, I had pretty much lost hope within myself, my ability, and my knowledge. I began to think that nursing wasn't for me. That's when I stumbled onto Susie's TikTok. Susie was able to pinpoint areas where I needed to pay more attention, and it gave me the confidence I needed not only to prepare, but pass the England. It was a blessing to work one on one with Susie.
Just follow the instructions carefully and take it seriously. 150 questions later, I'm now an LPN.
And then I have another one. And this was by Leslie and she or he, she said, after failing. Okay, after failing NClEx four times and graduating four years ago, I had given up, given up hope on becoming a RN. I was really hesitant to retake the NCLEx exam because I knew nothing about NGN questions. I needed guidance, and I was referred to Susannah, the next gen tutor. She has been absolutely amazing since our first consultation. I had four sessions with her, and each time my testing confidence increased. Susannah is a great tutor with lots of patience and knowledge. She helped me break down the questions and had a structured plan, study plan. Even after my sessions were completed, she kept in contact with me and made sure I was still on track. I took Nclex for the fifth time and 150 questions and three and a half hours I passed. I am officially Arian.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Yeah, she's really sweet.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: That's two of many. That's only two of many.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: I love that most recent one that's on there, too, the one that was Rebecca's. Rebecca's testimony. She straight up made me cry.
I just put hers up there the other day. She. She had, like, everyone has just different struggles and stuff, and some of them stay with me for a little while, and some of them, you know, just need a little bit of guidance, and they're like, okay, I'm done. I'm ready. And I'm like, okay, that's all good. And, yeah, Leslie actually lives here. Leslie was actually recommended to me by the person who did my teaching preceptorship, Kelly. Kelly is a nurse practitioner, an educator, insanely smart, and has her doctorates. I had the pleasure of working with her when I worked at children's, and when I got ready to go to do my teaching practicum, I was like, would you mind if I worked with you? And it was. It was a beautiful experience. And Kelly is a lot like you. She is just complete and total positive. She's a beautiful person inside and out. The students absolutely love her. She's a great educator. She's a very, very gifted educator.
She's so patient with the students.
She gave Leslie to me. Leslie was one of the students from her school, and Leslie had failed. Reached out to Kelly and said, I can't get past this test. And Kelly says, well, I know somebody, and I think she's really good. She gave Leslie my information, and that's. That's how Leslie found me. Niecy found me on TikTok. So a lot of them that I started out with, I either were on different tutoring platforms or they were referrals from someone else, but I remember each and every single one of them. A lot of them I still keep in touch with, like, that. I form that good rapport with my students, and then when I don't have them anymore, I kind of miss them. You know, they're like my little brothers or my little sisters. They're like my kids too, you know? So. Yep.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Yes. I think that is awesome. And so even just diving into your educational insight of your focus on English and being the next tutor, I love it, because just hearing you talk, you're talking about the relationship.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: When it comes to having you as a tutor, which include mentoring and coaching, yeah. You have different services. So tell me more about. About your services.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. Basically, when I do consults with students, I teach them how to break down Nclick style questions because there's a certain way to approach them. We're just looking for keywords, especially in those specific, like, those client needs areas. If it's health promotion and maintenance, we're looking at, you know, especially with the pediatric and the ob questions, we look at age. And so I tell the students, highlight the gestational age of the mother or highlight the age of the child, because it's either going to lead you to what milestone they should be.
A lot of times the question will be asking you about that, and then you'll know what milestone they should be at or, like, where they should be psychologically, according to Erickson's or PJ's or something. If it's an Ob question, a lot of times that'll help lead you to say, they're asking you about diet, like gestational diabetes, right? We don't diagnose that until late into the second trimester. So if it was trying to trick you and ask you a question, and it was asking you a question, something about, like, maybe in the 20th week of pregnancy, you could immediately get rid of that, because, you know, looking at the gestational age and highlighting it, that's not something that you would do that early on. So I teach them that, and then I. A lot of them, the problem is, is that some of them know the content, but some of them just zip through the questions too fast. They go like this, and then they're like, ah, it's b. And I'm like, no, we don't do that. Nope. I was like, I always. Even if they know the answer, I know that you know it, you still have to narrow it down. So then I teach them to always narrow it down and then to pick one. And reading the rationales is just really paramount. Understanding why you got the question right, why the other answers are wrong, or vice versa, that's really, like, paramount to, like, understanding how to study for the ink. Like, someone wrote me on Reddit earlier today, and they're like, I'm doing like, 85 to 100 questions a day. I'm like, first of all, like, you're doing too many questions. You're mentally fatiguing yourself. What I always say is, I tell the students, it's quality over quantity. You don't need to do a lot of questions in order to be successful, successful and to study for your NCLex and get where you need to be. You can do anywhere between 50 to 60 questions a day, and that's enough. Doing more questions isn't going to get you where you need to be. That's just going to make you more tired, mentally understanding how to break down the question and understanding why you got it right and the other ones are wrong, just like I said, and vice versa. That's the quality part of it. The quantity part of it is not so much the important piece. And then when I talk to him about the coaching part, what I tell them is, is that I base my business around just being authentic and being myself. I am who I am, take it or leave it. And most of the students that work with me, they like that. They like that. I tell them, yeah, this is my business and I make money with it or whatever, but I'm not here for the money. I'm here to help you pass your Nclex exam. And that's just the God honest truth. But I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you. I'm like, if you don't know, if you don't know the content and I don't think you're ready, like I'm going to tell you because my job is not to sit here and sugarcoat it. My job is to help. Help you get as close to passing as possible. But it's a two way street. I have to do my part. That's why I don't under. That's why I don't offer 100% guarantee. Some students have asked me that and I know some creators do that. I don't do that because in this world, if we're being realistic, nothing is 100% guaranteed in this life and I'm not going to put that on my shoulders. That's not fair to me as the tutor and that's not fair to the student either. It's a two way street and so we both work at it. And if I'm being completely and totally like honest and transparent most of the time, yeah, it does work out. When they tutor with me. There's been a couple times with some of the students where it doesn't and some of them choose to retutor and some of them don't. You know, we just work at it and do our best together. But it's like I say, that's why I don't offer that. It's a two way street and I really like to base it on having a really close, open rapport. Like some of the students, it's easier for them to open up to me than others. And then others, they're a little bit, they're more shy, their shell is a little bit harder to crack. But when they're ready, then they'll kind of like after they get used to me for a while they'll tell me things and we'll be on a session, and I'll be like, what's wrong? And they're like, nothing. And I'm like, no, I can tell something's wrong. Tell me what's going on. And they're like this or that. And I'm like, okay. And that's why you have my cell phone number, too. So you can. That's what I offer them. I give them my cell phone number, but I have, like, recently gotten to where I had to get some boundaries with that because I was doing, I was overextending myself a little too much so they can contact me from, like eight to five during the week, and then I just ask them not to text me on the weekends because usually I have my daughter and that's my time to decompress. But I tell them, if you're upset and you're having a bad day, I want to know about it. I'm like, text me. That's why you have my phone number. I'm like, nobody else that I know out there is going to give you their cell phone number. So if I were you, I'd take full advantage of it. And if you do a question and you don't understand it, send it to me. If you're having a bad day and you're just like, Suzanne, my scores were, like 50 today, and I'm just having a really crappy date. Like, I want to know about it. And I usually voice text them and then I remind them how smart they are, and I'm like, you can do this. And it's just one day because we are, all of us are our own worst enemy. And, I mean, I'm the worst of that. I give that advice out to my students and I do it to myself. Like, I'm so stuck on perfectionism, and it's terrible. You got to give yourself some grace. That's what the coaching is based around. And then when they do the consult with me, I get into what the tutoring packages are with them and I tell them what that stuff is. So that's, that's basically what it looks like. It's just about having that good, open rapport. And I feel like a lot of students, even after they fail at once, the things that they come to me and they tell me, like, someone just wrote me a message on TikTok yesterday, and they're like, I took it, and I thought I was doing so well, and I'm devastated. I hear that word like so much over and over and it breaks my heart. I don't. I don't want them to feel that way. And if I can do something to make them feel better, and I can just be there to nudge them along and keep reminding them not to give up on themselves.
And whether or not people want to admit it, it sounds. But your mindset when you go into that exam, it's everything, right? Just kind of like, your mindset with, like, getting your graduate degree. That wasn't easy for you, right? Like, that was a different, difficult process. That wasn't easy for me. I was a single mom, and I tell my students, look, you don't have to be the smartest person in the room. What you have to be is the hardest working person in the room. If you're just hard working and you persevere and you have grit and you dig your hills in, you can do anything. How do you think that I got through graduate school? I took accelerated five week classes, and there were a lot of nights where, yeah, I had to sacrifice, and I'm like, I'm gonna have to stay up till midnight, finish writing this discussion board post. I'm gonna have to stay up till midnight writing this paper. But I wanted it really, really bad for myself. That's how bad I wanted it. And if you want something bad enough, you'll work hard enough at it, and you'll get it. But if you don't put your all into something, then you. You may not accomplish it. You may not get there. But as you're. Long as you're willing to do the work, you don't. Like I said, you don't have to be the smartest person. You got it. Do you have to know the content? Yeah, you do. But that doesn't mean that you can't get there. And even if you've had an education that hasn't been the greatest, and we're. We're starting with baby steps, and we're having to build on that foundation. We can do those things.
You're capable of that. Like, every single one of them, I believe that really has the compassion in their heart to do it. They can. They can do it. They can be successful. You just have to be willing to put in the time and the work. And the students that don't want to put in the time and the work. Those are the students that keep getting frustrated with themselves over and over, or the students that don't want to ask for help because they're afraid to ask for help for whatever reason, or they're embarrassed. Some of the students have told me that I was embarrassed. I didn't. I didn't want to think that I needed help, but it's okay to ask for help. It's the same thing as, look at it this way. You went to your professors when you were in nursing school and asked for help. So if you're having trouble with your licensure exam, it's okay to ask somebody for help that knows about it, that can help you so you don't have to keep struggling.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: Yeah, that's good.
Working in staff development for the organization that I work for, I get to help facilitate orientation for new grads, and so I get to celebrate their wins, and then I also get to uplift them, even in their lows and their losses, when they don't pass Nclex the first time. And I just let them know that failing NCLEx is not the example of what type of nurse you're going to be. You know, gotta pass the test.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: And I always ask them what happened? Like, let's talk about test days. Were you anxious? And most of the time, they were very anxious. And they sat through the whole test, and I was like, how long did you test for? And it's like 3 hours, 4 hours. And I'm like, not once did you get up and give your mind a break from that computer screen. And so. And I always tell myself, you know, you have to go in there with confidence. I told myself personally, I'm gonna go in here and I'm gonna pass it. I got it. But I'm the type of person that if I set a schedule, if I stick to it, and I honestly went over those test questions and that study time, and I did hearse review and Kaplan at the time when I was going through nursing school. And so I focused on those certain areas that I felt like I needed more help in. I did those in question.
I focused on the rationales, and I didn't focus on getting it right or wrong, but just obviously breaking down that question to get the content from it, the value from that question, and I just piped myself up, like, I didn't. I build up my confidence and, hey, I got this. I didn't did all I know to do, and I actually did. So I did all I know to do, and I went in and I gave myself a break, which was some of the different strategies that came from the NCLEx review review that I did do, which was Hearst review at the time as well. And I just feel like that's what helped me be successful.
[00:37:08] Speaker B: Joke.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: And tell people, I held on to the Bible for, like, two full days. And my dad was like, if you don't put that Bible down, I'm like, if this gonna help me pass, lord, just help me pass. And I think we all get very anxious because after the fact, we don't know until we know.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: But I think anxiety is definitely a sniper.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It is.
[00:37:30] Speaker A: Where they would have passed, but they allow anxiety to overwhelm them. It's just a test, a very important test, and ultimately, you get to take it again.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: Even though we want to go in there confident the first time.
[00:37:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:46] Speaker A: So, yes.
What's your thought when it comes to that?
[00:37:51] Speaker B: I've been a nurse since I was 21, so I tell my students I'm a dinosaur. They're like, you're not a dinosaur. I mean, I didn't take it on paper. Okay. Mine was on the computer, but things have changed so much.
I made a TikTok about it. And seriously, it's like a riker. I call it a Riker prison pat down. Cause when they go in there, it's so much different from when I took it. Number one, the test is a lot harder. It's a lot more difficult. Friends of mine in academia, they're like, mm mm, girl, I wouldn't want to take that test. Now. They'll admit that quite openly. And then the other part of it is because the cheating has gotten so prevalent on NClex exam, they've like, really. They've really gotten strict. I don't know when you took it, but when my students take it, I tell them, don't wear jewelry because they will make you take your jewelry off. They think there's answers on the jewelry. If you're a young lady and you have long hair, wear your hair up because they're going to make you pull your hair up. They're looking for sheets of paper. If you wear a oversized shirt, like a sweatshirt or something, they're going to make you lift your sweatshirt. They want to make sure there's no papers tucked into your pants. If you wear glasses, they're going to take your glasses. They're going to put them under a special scanning device, and they look to see if there's test answers on there. It's crazy the lengths that it's gotten to. So I'm like, the only thing you need to take in there is take your id, take your car keys, take your cell phone, put your cell phone, put your car keys in the locker, and then you can't take any food or drink in there, either. You can keep it outside of there. And that's what I told them to do. As far as the break, too, legally, the rules say that they get a break not until 2 hours. But here's a caveat, and this is what I tell my students a lot. I tell them, after about an hour, raise your hand and tell them you need to go to the bathroom. And then I tell my students, and a lot of my students do this, they'll get up and go to the bathroom because it's hard staring at the computer screen for such long periods of time. Now, the time does keep running, but my students go to the bathroom, don't talk to anybody. The reason I tell them not to talk to anybody is one of my students took it, and she was doing fine. And then she went to the bathroom, and she talked to some guy. She was coming out, and he was like, oh, my God. That test was so easy, and it just completely threw her off, and it just gave her anxiety, and then she just couldn't concentrate after that, and she ended up failing it. And then I re tutored her, and she passed it. But I don't talk to anybody about the test. Just go to the bathroom, get a supple water. Just get yourself refreshed. Take some deep breaths. I'm like, just that quick five minute break. It'll help reset your brain. And then go back in there and sit down again. And that's what a lot of my students do. One of my students on there, Allie, her testimonials on there, Allie is so smart, and she has. She failed it four times before she came to me, but she is so brilliant. And Allie's only problem is that she just went through the questions too fast. And once I taught her how to break them down, she was fine. And she actually, poor thing, she did what I told her to do. She actually ran out of time. So there's a run out of time rule, and she cut off at 141. And she's like, oh, my gosh, Susanna. I'm like, it's going to be okay. I'm like, look, this is the rules about it. As long as you were at this percentage, they're just going to take the number of questions that you had as long as you're at because there's fixed interval and then there's.
I forget that other rule. When they cut off around 85 or so, there's, like, three different rules. The students are under this myth that whatever number they cut off on decides if they pass or fail, and that's a complete and total myth. You can pass or fail at any number. It doesn't matter. But she cut off, and I'm like, no, you're doing really well. She's like, I knew all this stuff, Susanna. I knew it. I go, then don't worry about it. I was like, they'll add it up. And sure enough, like, she didn't even have to wait. Two days later, she got her quick result, and she passed. And she had the run out of time rule because she really took what I said to heart. She slowed down and she took her time, but she still passed it, so that's all that matters. But, yeah, you're completely right. The anxiety really plays a role into it. And if you go in there and tell my students to, I believe in you, and I'm like, it has to come to a certain point where you start believing in yourself, because I can do that till I'm blue in the face. But if you don't believe in yourself and then you go in there to take the examined and you don't really believe in yourself, you're not going to get where you need to be. You can't have any hindrances if there's personal hindrances going on in your personal life. You know, I've had students go there, in there and take it, and they were sick. I had a student that she had cancer. She's fighting off cancer at the time, and she took the test, and so then that affects her, and she's very smart.
All those different personal things that we have going into our life, those play a role into how you're going to do in that NCLEx exam. And if you're not really sure of yourself, like, you're going to be nervous. You can't completely get rid of the nervousness.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: If that was me, that would give me anxiety, just being transparent. But if you can go in there and you know that, you know the content, you know that you've studied the way that you should study, right? And you're confident, there are always going to be things on there that you don't know on that exam. But if you can go in there and you believe in yourself the way that I believe in them, they have to get to that point. There has to be that turning point where they get there or that does affect them, and then that can cause them to bomb their chest again, because then they just get so nervous when they go in there. There. You know, I had one student take it recently, and she was fine. And I kept telling her the number doesn't matter, but she got to question 95, and she got kind of wiggy with it. And she was like, oh. And I was like. And I was like, but you're okay. It doesn't matter. I was like, I told you, you know, the number doesn't matter. She goes, I know. And she's like, but then I just started getting nervous. I just.
It's hard for me. It upsets me when I see that stuff happen because I can only do so much. I can't go into the test with them, but I just always tell I'm there. They're like, I wish I could take you in there with me. And I'm like, I am in there with you. I'm not there with you in person, but I'm in here and I'm in here. You got me in those two places. So just remember that whenever you go in there, just hear my little. Hear my twang telling you, slow down. Take your time. Pick out your key words. Narrow it down so you're in their.
[00:43:23] Speaker A: Hearts and their minds. I love it. I love it. Thank you for sharing that. I do want to say that nurse.org has an article titled what is the Nclex exam and how to prepare and pass. It discusses how to register eligibility, scoring pass rates, and finding out if you pass. It's like a ten minute read of all things Nclex. So I do want to throw that out there for my listeners to go check that out. Now, Miss Susanna, what final thoughts do you have for our listeners as we wrap up this episode?
[00:43:58] Speaker B: Couple of things. So, first of all, if you're going to go into nursing, make sure that you're doing it for the right reasons. It is a thankless profession. Don't go into it for the money. If you go into them for the money, then you're not going to be successful. You really got to have compassion. You really got to have heart because you're going to have really hard days. You're also going to have, like, really good days, but you're going to be in the right mindset in order to do it. These are people that need us to take care of them and take care of their families. And, and that's. That's the most important thing, I think, is being a nurse is that you can be smart. You can make a lot of money with it, but you got to have the hard for it. It's a difficult job. I'm not going to lie. And I think you would agree on that, right?
[00:44:39] Speaker A: Yes. Yes it is. Even when you mentioned about COVID and getting burned out around that time, a lot of people wanted to become nurses because, because they saw it was glorified to be a traveling nurse around that time because of all the money. But you don't think about the lives that were risked, the lives that were lost during that time especially, even some of the nurses lost their lives. And so don't let money be the main motive. Pretty much don't let money.
[00:45:09] Speaker B: It's never good for that to be the main motive. And just think about too, nursing students, I think, don't realize when you're getting ready to apply for nursing school, make sure you go and look and you can google it and you can pull up your state bnet PDF files. Look and investigate the nursing schools you go to. Because what I find a lot when I tutored students for NCLEx exam that have failed numerous times is what I am hearing repetitively over and over is that some of these nursing schools, I'm just going to be really blunt about this. When you go to nursing school, you get what you pay for. If you, if you get a cheap education, you pay for a cheap education, you're going to get a cheap education. So it's, it's, I mean, it is kind of like expensive, but it's worth it in the long run. And investigate those things. And if you look at a school and their pass rates are not consistently 90 or above, I would tell you to probably not consider going to that school. Schools that drop into the eighties and when they get down to 80%, when you get to 80%, that's when the state board, any state board will come in and they'll try to shut the school down. They can take your accreditation away. So those are important things to know. Really investigate the nursing schools that you're thinking about going to and make sure their pass rates consistently over the past three or four years, or at least about like 90%, that's going to give you a chance in getting a much better education and struggling less when you take the NCLEx exam. And then my final thought would be, and this is just me. Even 22 years ago when I took NCLex, I studied for two months. I studied for two months when I took my NCLEx exam. I know some people are like, I didn't study for it and I passed it. Like, kudos to you, that's great. But I do think that there's a reason that we have inclusive content writers like Mark K. He's an NCLEx content writer. There's a reason we have Kaplan. There's a reason that we have uworld. There's a reason that we have Saunders. These are all people that are knowledgeable in this and know how to write Nclex style questions. So take that resource and use it to your advantage. Don't just dump it by the wayside, no matter what you're getting told. If you're getting told to hurry up and take your NClex, listen to your own intuition, and if you don't feel like you have the knowledge, take that time to study for at least, you know, I'd say six weeks if you need it, or even eight weeks. It's not bad to study for your NCLex exam. And there's no evidence based practice to support not studying for NCLex exam. That's just something that gets repeated over and over again. But it's not really based off any nursing journal literature to support that.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: It's interesting you said that, because I was always kind of told, the sooner you take it, the better.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: Sooner you take it, the better. And they said the likelihood of passing when you wait too long is less likely. Pretty much.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: I should get space practice on that, then.
[00:47:53] Speaker A: But if they honestly have a study tech, a study technique, a good strategy, and they're actually studying, then I could see where that could be very successful.
[00:48:03] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, because look at Leslie's testimonial. You read it often. Leslie, that's. That's what? That's like four years after she graduated that she took it and she passed it. And this is completely anecdotal, but, yeah, that's something I've thought about making into evidence based practice, because we just don't really have any literature on it. So when we're telling nursing students to do that, we're not telling them something that's based on a lot of evidence based practice. That's something. That's just what I like to call being parroted. So you hear somebody else say it, so you say it. It's not actually based on facts.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: Got you. Thank you for sharing that.
How can our listeners contact you or connect with you?
[00:48:41] Speaker B: There's a couple of different ways. I have a Facebook business page, but probably the best way is on IG. Students message me a lot of times on there. My handles are the next gen tutor on IG and also on TikTok. Or you can go straight to the website, you can go to HTTPs, and then I colon and then two forward slashes and put in the next gen tutor, and then you can fill out the consultation forms. Consultations are $25. And then I just. We talk about what we talked on this podcast, and I just go a little bit more into depth about what you need to do, how you need to have the right tools in your toolbox, and what I do as an NCLEx coach and tutor. And then I talk about tutoring packages to help you pass your NClex exam.
[00:49:23] Speaker A: Well, y'all heard it from the next gen tutor. Miss Susannah Valdada. Thank you so much for being here with me today.
Now everyone knows that you can reach me at all. One nurse Chanel on IG. I changed my Instagram handle to make it more personable, but you can also find me at all. One nurse on TikTok and all one nurse on Facebook. Thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time, be sure to let your light shine, and I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you, Miss Susannah.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: You're welcome. Follow her. Follow her. She's phenomenal. Follow her.
[00:50:02] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:50:04] Speaker B: Bye.
