What is a Psych-Tech? - Page 2

I work in Psych as a PCTA ( aide with paper duties). Other then a yearly Critical Crisis Management program I am required to have I had no other special training.

Its different in Psych then in other units on the hospital. If a patient is screaming out "nurse" for 8 hours, we are allowed to set limits such as, go in when he/ or she calls out, see if there is anything they need, or if they are just doing this for attention ( as in im the only one here, no one else matters) and then tell them we will not be back for an 1/2 hour, hour.

We provide care depending on the diagnosis... for example I will not stomp on imaginary snakes for patient with dilusions, that feeds into the illness. However, if the patient has dementia, I will tell them there husbands car broke down, or its snowing outside.

I try not to get short with the patients, and never blame the patients but the illness. It gets hard sometimes though, exp when you have just been punched in the stomach, spit on and had half of your shirt ripped off of you, because you were trying to keep an elderly patient from falling out of his chair.

licensed psych techs in California are under the same board as LVNs:

Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians

at my unit, the LPTs does pretty much exactly the same thing as RNs, except there's this one part in our documentation where it is about assessments, and the RN has to do it. Otherwise, they can pass meds, they have their own load of patients.

To reply to your thrashing of my profession here you go:

We are trained to, and are fully capable to care for the mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, or mentally retarded clients (as well as any client in any acute setting b/c that is where we do our rotations!!) be it their treatment or rehabilitation. We are directly responsible for admin/implementation of specific therapeutic procedures, techniques, and/or meds that are aimed towards the client making optimum use of their therapeutic regime. We give meds/injections, and chart just as the R.N. does, as a matter of fact my first 2 semesters were both nursing core based. Basically I can do most things the R.N's can do, minus a few things like start an IV or write up a care plan (which by the way I could do in my sleep since it was drilled into me my whole 18 months of school amongst many other staples of client care). I can work at a hospital, private facility, state mental institutions, and prisons and I get paid quite well. I don't know about these other states in some of these other comments but here in California we are licensed professionals and get paid WAY more then $11.00/hr (about 2.2 times more to START and more as you advance or if you work for Corrections). I would laugh until I peed myself if someone tried to pay me such a minimal amount for the hard (and extremely dangerous) work I do. Needless to say I am offended by your comment and some of the others on this site. Maybe you guys need to send your out of state tech's to CA and let them see how it's supposed to be done and if you are writing from within CA then you need to send those tech's to a place called Walnut, CA where there is a college called Mt. San Antonio College and have them trained properly. IF that doesn't solve the issue, and frankly this turning up of your noses at myself and my fellow techs, well then let me say this, there are lazy a**es in EVERY profession. I have seen SO many medical professionals (nurses, techs, therapists, docs, etc) perform poorly and wonder how in the heck they got so far, but to disrespect an entire field of professionals for some who are lazy or barley passed boards is just ridiculous. Although I have every intention of moving on to become a Therapist, I will always be a tech at heart, and I will always have the utmost respect for these people who work with the type of client many of you would run from.

So please, now that you have been somewhat informed (because I am too busy to school you any further), save your snide eye-rolling for kindergarten. Tah-tah

I am currently starting my career as a Psych Tech for a psych unit at OSU. I was a case mgr for a local MH agency for 1 year and have an Assoc. of Applied Science. My goal is to move to CA in a few years, hopefully finding employemnt as a Psych Tech in the area. Do I have to "start all over again" in order to become a licensed Psych Tech, or will my experience at OSU and education be enough to get accepted in a CA certified program?

I am not sure. Try this website below. You will find many useful links as well as contact numbers for our state licensing board. Private facilities are an option, but they do not pay as well as the state. We are finally growing our workforce in the prisons and Coalinga State Hospital is hiring like crazy right now, but it is an all sex offender hospital. The pay is excellent. With all the available overtime techs are making close to and even over $100,000 a year....there are many opportunities here in CA as a LPT so even if you have to jump through a few hoops to get licensed here, it is well worth it. GOOD LUCK...!!!!!

http://www.bvnpt.ca.gov/license_verification.shtml

Thanks for the information. I hope the hiring trend continues for the next few years. I will for sure keep my options open. Thanks again??

I would contact the BVNPT and inquire as to your ability to become licensed without going to a CA program. As for being accepted into a CA psych tech program, you will be very well qualified to be admitted. Mission College in Mountain View CA has a very good psych tech program. You might be able to get your CA credentials by only repeating one or two semesters of the three semester program.

One of my class mates is psyc tech in the hospital. SHe works nights. As for education, she has a CNA certificate. All she talks about is restrains, and how to protect yourself from combative pt. Weird... I don;t wanna even go to psyc rotation after her stories

Please don't go into your psych rotation being scared. I just completed my psych rotation & it was the best by far. I learned so much. I already knew I wanted to be a psych nurse and this just solidified it. Everyone else in my group was scared in the beginning. They had heard all these horror stories but they were all surprised to find that much of what they heard was more hype than reality. True, you always have to be aware of your surroundings & you will be told things like never turn your back to a patient and keep an arms length distance but its not as bad as you probably think. Yes at times a patient may need to be put in restraints but the least restrictive methods are used first. During my rotation, I never saw anyone put in restraints. Someone did go to the seclusion room though. Not trying to say that patients don't get combative but its usually not as bad as many students think going in. At least that's the conclusion most of the people in my class came to.

I was at a State Mental Hospital & they get the worst of the worst & I truly enjoyed interacting with the patients. Remember that psych patients are not just in Psych hospitals or on Psych floors. Almost half my med surg patients had psych issues & one became very agitated while I was taking care of her.Psych patients have health issues, they have babies. You can almost guarantee that you will come across more than a few psych patients as a nurse. Didn't mean to take the thread off track, just wanted to say keep an open mind.

I think Psych tech may mean different things at different institutions. The techs at my clinical site did not give meds.

PT's not passing meds? That's unusual. Where are you located?