NCLEX priority: the order u apply the frameworks (core concepts for your test)
Airway, breathing, circulation first. Always.
Then: is this actual or potential. An actual problem beats a risk for.
Then: is it acute or chronic. New shortness of breath beats long standing shortness of breath.
Then: is it unstable or stable. A changing value beats a bad value that has not moved.
Maslow comes last, and only once nobody is physiologically unstable. Safety before belonging, belonging before esteem.
Two that override everything. A pt who cannot maintain an airway. And anything u did that is still going in, so an infusion u started and an error u are mid way through outrank a pt who is waiting.
When two options are both physiological, pick the one that kills sooner. Airway kills in minutes, circulation in minutes to hours, and a potassium of 6.8 before a haemoglobin of 7.
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