psych clinicals. how is it for you?

[jfordngcsu]

this clinical rotation we are at a psych floor and it is not for me. i have seen everything from people having sex to people wearing wash clothes on their heads! the one thing that is bothersome is that the nurses have very little if any interaction with the patients. they barely know their names. all they do is paperwork all day long. where we go is actually at the hospital and the psych floor is put to the side from the other floors so they are short staffed and never have enough supplies cause the rest of the hospital doesn't care about them. i was just wondering if anyone else was having these problems at there clinicals too?

[Scarlette]

I considered myself lucky because I got to do home visits with a nurse. We were split up in separate groups and only 6 of my classmates ended up doing their rotation at the psych ward. They didn't get to interact with the patients too much either. I, on the other hand, had a wonderful experience and did ALOT of interacting, but...I was at the pts' homes where they are mostly stable, and more comfortable in their own environment. The drawback.....filthy houses. One person must've had 10 ashtrays piled high with cigarette butts, she smoked 5-6 ppd. Another person had dog feces all over the floor. I would come home and undress in the garage and leave my shoes out there. Clothes went immediately into the washer! Sorry if it sounds like I'm stero-typing here, but that was my experience. The upside: I had excellent interactions with them that made it all worth it.