DayoRN

Filed under: things I wish someone had handed me on placement

Placement is where nursing school gets real.

I'm Dayo — an ICU nurse and preceptor in Toronto. I build the practice tools I wish my students had: short reps, real rhythm strips, honest feedback — the kind of thing you can run on a break, coffee going cold beside you. The ECG trainers are live. More modules are coming, one at a time.

Open the Rhythm Trainer or warm up with the Lab →
Free. No login, no account, no ads.
Works on your phone, because that's what's in your pocket.

Start with the rhythms. Trust me.

— D

The toolkit

One placement, a whole toolkit

DayoRN is growing into the set of drills I actually want in my students' pockets. Two modules are finished and free to use right now. The rest are on my workbench — listed honestly below, no fake buttons.

Live now

— finished, tested on my own students, free
Live nowModule 01 · ECG

ECG Rhythm Trainer

The deep end, in a good way. Part 1 is 24 rhythms on 6-second Lead II strips — sinus, atrial, ventricular, junctional, the blocks, all of it. Parts 2 and 3 move on to full 12- and 15-lead ECGs and axis deviation. Movable calipers throughout, so you measure it yourself instead of guessing.

  • 24 rhythms across six groups, with similar-looking options so you can't coast
  • 12 & 15-lead ECGs in Part 2 — V4R, V8 and V9 included, clues named lead by lead
  • Axis deviation in Part 3, taught with the quadrant method
  • Draggable calipers — read intervals in ms, boxes and bpm

Which one should I use? This one, if rhythms are starting to make sense and you want the full picture — or if 12-leads and axis are the parts that still feel shaky before an exam.

Open the Rhythm Trainer

also at trainer.dayorn.ca

Live nowModule 02 · ECG

ECG Rhythm Lab

The gentler on-ramp. Sixteen rhythms, and you're allowed to study them before anyone quizzes you — that's the whole point.

  • Learn mode — study each rhythm first, quiz second
  • Challenge mode — the rhythm, the PVCs, the AV block: three calls per strip
  • Field Guide — the recognition clues, written down where you can find them
  • Your own progress page — so you can see it actually sticking

Which one should I use? This one, if ECGs are new to you or you want a short daily drill. Ten honest minutes beats an hour of flashcards. ← my students start here

Open the Rhythm Lab

also at lab.dayorn.ca

In the workshop

— being built, not ready, no button to press yet
  • ABG interpretationIn the works

    The four-step read, practiced until it's boring. Boring is the goal — boring means automatic at 3 a.m.

  • Lab values that actually matter on the floorIn the works

    Electrolytes, kidneys, CBC — the ones you'll actually get paged about, not all forty on the printout.

  • Med mathIn the works

    Dosage calculations and drip rates, checked the way a preceptor checks them — slowly, twice.

  • ISBAR handoversIn the works

    Structure a handover that doesn't ramble, so the next nurse gets the story in ninety seconds.

  • Head-to-toe assessmentIn the works

    A checklist drill in the order you'd actually do it at the bedside, not the order in the textbook.

  • Spotting deteriorationIn the works

    Sepsis and the quietly-crashing patient — the one who looks "fine" until they very much aren't.

  • ICU basicsIn the works

    Vents, lines, and drips without the panic. What the numbers mean, what to touch, what to never touch.

  • “What do you do first?”In the works

    Short clinical scenarios, one decision at a time — because that's how the floor actually asks the question.

One module at a time. I have a day job. — D

How it works

How a module works

Every module here follows the same three rules. If a future one doesn't, it doesn't ship.

  1. Short rounds you can finish on a break

    No hour-long sessions, no setup. Open it, run a round, close it. If it can't survive a fifteen-minute break and a cold coffee, it's too long.

  2. Feedback that tells you why

    Not just right or wrong — the clues that mattered, and why the similar-looking answer wasn't it. A red X teaches you nothing. A reason does.

  3. Built from real placement situations

    The scenarios come from things students actually get tripped up by on the floor — not exam-bank trivia. And it's education only: practice here, clinical judgment out there.

About

Hi, I'm Dayo.

I'm an ICU nurse in Toronto and I precept nursing students on placement — which mostly means watching smart people freeze the first time a monitor does something interesting. It isn't a knowledge problem. It's a reps problem.

So I started building the reps. These tools are mine — designed, written and argued with between shifts, tested on my own students before they land here. I'm also working through a master's on the side (MN–Primary Health Care NP at TMU), so yes, I know exactly how little free time you have. That's why everything here is short.

Bookmark dayorn.ca and check back. The toolkit grows one finished module at a time — never announced before it's real.

You're at DayoRN.ca — the home of all of it

This page is the front door, and dayorn.ca is the one short address worth sharing with a classmate. Skipping the hub is fine too: trainer.dayorn.ca goes straight to the Rhythm Trainer and lab.dayorn.ca straight to the Rhythm Lab. One honest note — the address is brand new, so it may take a little while to start responding everywhere while DNS finishes propagating. The links above always work in the meantime.