Re: corrections is fantastic!!!
I just started working in the county correctional facility a couple weeks ago. It was a very rough first couple of days -- I'm usually not claustrophobic, but I was definitely getting cabin fever. After getting over the initial culture shock, I'm finding myself liking it more every day.
I took the position because, unfortunately, opportunities for LPN's in my area are dwindling. I refuse to go back to LTC, and was losing my skills working in other areas. In the correctional setting, I'm kind of getting exposed to just about any and all aspects of nursing care (emergency, med/surg, chronic care, psych, etc), with few exceptions.
This is also one of the very few areas of nursing where you can actually sit down and do some patient teaching instead of mindless pill-passing and charting. For some of these folks, the medical care they receive in the institution is the only medical care they've had for years, so it's really an eye-opening experience.
If you can look past the booking number and get over the institutionalized mindset, and see your patient as someone who genuinely needs help, it's a great place to be. Yes, they will manipulate and connive and try to get over on you, but in my experience that's no different than a lot of the patients I've dealt with in other specialties.
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most about my job, getting done with my shift and knowing nobody died.
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