Psych/Mental Health Nursing

memphispanda, RN · May 13, 2003

I just finished my Psych rotation. We went to two different psych facilities. The first I thought was sort of boring and miserable until I went to the second. It was really bad. So bad that we are working on contacting the person in charge of the facility to let them know what is going on there--hopefully they aren't aware that it is as bad as it is. No abuse, but absolutely nothing of therapeutic value going on.

Anyway, it wasn't too bad I guess. In general the people were quite interesting. The first facility had some really good groups. It was neat to see the patients support each other and encourage each other. But it's not for me.

Our testbook is Foundations of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing by Saunders. It's a decent book. Our instructors insisted on saying "in the OLD edition" blah blah blah...and they took a lot of test questions from the previous edition, so that kind of was annoying.

Hope you have a good time!

Love-A-Nurse · May 14, 2003

panda, thanks!

i will start my psych rotation in two weeks. like yourself, this is not the area for me either. we will be using psychiatric mental health nursing by sheila l. videbeck.

i will let you know how it goes. i will be traveling over an hour to clinical, what fun, right!

subec · May 14, 2003

We just finished our psych rotation with our second semester. I really enjoyed this rotation. Even though I don't see myself as a psych nurse, the information that we learned in invaluable in dealing with each patient.

Our book was Johnson's Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing. We spent time in 3 different areas, so we were able to see a variety of diagnoses.

Good luck to you---enjoy this rotation!!!

andi2634 · May 14, 2003

I thought I was going to hate my psych rotattion and I was so scared before I started but I really liked it. I was at a great facility with a really good staff. Relax- it won't be so bad- you'll get really good at talking with many different kinds of people. You'll realize later that the skills you learn in psych will be valuable where ever you go.