You're not lazy. You've highlighted, re-read, built flashcard stacks thicker than the textbook. In study group, you can explain heart failure out loud. Then the exam flips one detail in the question — and everything you "knew" dissolves.
Here's the part nobody tells you: it's not a memory problem. It's a structure problem. Disconnected facts have nothing to hold onto under pressure. Patterns do.
That's the entire difference between the student who blanks on question 14 and the nurse who answers in seconds. Not more hours — a different shape for the same material.