Miriam Tivzenda's ANCC AANP Study Group

08/10/2025

08/10/2025

The Buzzword Trick No One Taught You in NP School
“If you’ve ever stared at a practice question thinking, ‘I’ve seen this before… but I can’t remember the answer!’—this is for you.”
→ My Buzzword Guides train your brain to recognize the clues instantly.
Get it now at https://payhip.com/NPEXAMPREP.

04/10/2025

What kind of NP will you be?
Every aspiring NP faces this question: What kind of nurse practitioner will you be?
It’s not just about passing boards—it’s about the impact you’ll carry into every patient’s life.
Anyone can earn NP credentials. Few earn the trust that comes from listening deeper and caring harder.
The best NPs leave more than notes in a chart—they leave footprints in their patients’ lives.
Skill makes you competent. Heart makes you unforgettable.
Your actions decide what kind of NP you’ll be.
The NP patients remember most isn’t the one with all the answers, but the one who truly listens.
— Miriam Tivzenda, APRN, Nurse Educator & Coach

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04/10/2025

🩺 Buzzword Saturday: 3 Board Faves You’ll Actually Use

Hey future (and current) NPs — time to sharpen your brain before the weekend snacks win.
Here are 3 buzzwords that love showing up on NP boards:
1️⃣ Osler’s nodes → Painful red-purple nodules on fingers or toes = infective endocarditis clue
2️⃣ Beck’s triad → Hypotension + muffled heart sounds + jugular venous distension = cardiac tamponade
3️⃣ S3 heart sound → The “Kentucky” beat in heart failure (extra sound after S2)
Want more high-yield buzzwords, mnemonics, and exam filters? Check out my shop at VettasNPexamprep:
🔗

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03/10/2025

🩺 NP Exam Hack: How to Recognize the “Throwaway” Answer
When you’re tackling NP exam questions, not all answer choices deserve your time. Some are “throwaways”—clearly wrong options designed to distract you.
👉 How to spot them:
✔ They contradict basic pathophysiology (example: giving a beta-blocker to someone in acute asthma exacerbation 🚫).
✔ They’re extreme or absolute (“always,” “never,” “only”).
✔ They don’t match the age group or setting in the stem of the question.
Eliminating these first narrows your options and boosts your confidence. Remember—the exam often rewards clinical reasoning, not guesswork!
Keep sharpening your test-taking strategy… smarter thinking = fewer second-guesses. You’ve got this!
📚 Need more NP study hacks and guides? Check out vettasnpexamprep.etsy.com for tools designed to make your prep easier.

— Miriam Tivzenda, APRN, Nurse Educator & Coach

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03/10/2025

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01/10/2025

💡 Endocrine Triggers for NPs & NP Students
“Moon face + buffalo hump” → Cushing’s syndrome
“Pretibial myxedema” → Graves (Hyperthyroidism)
“Polyuria + polydipsia + polyphagia” → Diabetes mellitus
👉 If you know the buzzword, you know the diagnosis.
Shared by Miriam Tivzenda, APRN, Nurse Educator & Coach
📚 I put together NP buzzword study guides that go deeper, like this—super helpful for board prep. You can find them here

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25/09/2025

🚨 One Thing NP Graduates Forget During the Job Hunt 🚨
Aspiring and new NPs, when you’re focused on résumés, interviews, and finally landing that first job, it’s easy to overlook a critical detail: your contract.
Too many new grads are so excited about the offer that they sign without fully understanding what’s inside. Later, they discover:
📝 Repayment clauses for DEA or licensing fees
⏳ Long non-compete agreements that limit future opportunities
💸 Salary or productivity bonuses that sound good but don’t match the actual workload
👉 Here’s the truth: your contract shapes your day-to-day life as much as your stethoscope does.
💡 Before you sign on the dotted line, always have a lawyer review your contract. It’s one of the best investments you can make in your career security.
You’ve worked too hard to earn those letters (FNP, AGNP, etc.) to start your career trapped by a contract you didn’t fully understand.
✨ Remember: knowledge is power. The more prepared you are, the smoother your transition into practice will be.
📖For more insights like this, check out my book, Things They Did Not Teach You in Nurse Practitioner School: https://a.co/d/j7Rt61X.
💭 Question for you: If you’re a new grad, have you thought about what to look for in a contract yet?
Miriam Tivzenda, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC
Nurse Educator & Coach

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24/09/2025

Aspiring NPs and Nps
📚 No Shortcut to Passing—One Step at a Time
There’s no elevator to success in nurse practitioner school or board exams—you’ve got to take the stairs.
One concept at a time.
One practice question at a time.
One patient encounter at a time.
It may feel slow, but every step is preparing you for the next. Don’t get discouraged if you’re not “at the top” yet. What matters is consistency and persistence.
Break down your studying into steps.
Celebrate small wins (mastering labs, nailing SATA questions).
Trust that steady effort builds lasting confidence.
Keep climbing—the license, the title, and the career you dream of are waiting for you at the top.
💡 If you need structured study tools to guide your climb, check out my Etsy shop

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23/09/2025

🌟 What I Wish I Knew as a New NP
When I stepped into my first NP role, I thought the hardest part was over—I’d passed boards, earned the title, and was finally practicing! But here’s the truth: the real learning started on day one.
If I could go back and talk to my “brand-new NP self,”
Here are 3 things I’d share:
1️⃣ Imposter Syndrome is Normal. That shaky feeling when you’re double-checking every order? You’re not alone. Confidence comes with reps, not with the credentials alone.
2️⃣ Your Contract Matters. Don’t just celebrate the job offer—read the fine print. Salary is only one part; CME allowance, call schedules, and non-competes will shape your quality of life.
3️⃣ Balance Clinical & Non-Clinical Skills. You’ll spend time coding, documenting, and navigating systems as much as diagnosing. The sooner you master both, the smoother your practice will feel.
👉 Lesson: being a new NP isn’t about knowing everything—it’s about being willing to learn, ask, and grow. The best leaders are the ones who remember what it felt like to be new and use that empathy to lift others up.
✨These reflections actually inspired me to write “Things They Did Not Teach You in Nurse Practitioner School”—a guide I wish I had during those early days. I know many of you can relate! Now on Amazon:https://a.co/d/907mccw
Miriam Tivzenda. APRN, Educator & Coach

Discover the hidden gems of being a nurse practitioner in "Things They Did Not Teach You in Nurse Practitioner School." Find out how to be successful in Nurse practitioner school. How to find preceptors for your clinical rotations, how to do well in clinical rotations, how to pass the nurse pract...

22/09/2025

📚 The Story No One Warns You About the NP Board Exam.
When I was preparing for my NP boards, I spent hours drilling clinical scenarios—hypertension guidelines, diabetes meds, and asthma step therapy. But then, out of nowhere, the test threw me a curveball: non-clinical topics.
Things like billing & coding, leadership styles, and ethics. I remember staring at the screen thinking, “Wait… this wasn’t in the pathophysiology book!”
Here’s the truth: non-clinical topics can make or break your score. The exam isn’t just testing what you know about patients—it’s also testing how you’ll function as a real NP in practice.
That’s why I created resources that simplify these “hidden” topics into easy, high-yield study guides. If you want to boost your confidence in areas most students overlook, check out my Etsy

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