Am I being naive

[crazy4psych]

Hey everyone!

So I'm reaching out again to all of you lovely people for some advice, personal experiences...anything really to make me a little more sure about the path I am taking in life.

I'm starting nursing school at the end of the month and to be honest, I've been second guessing my decision more than getting excited and embracing the next few years. The reason I am so apprehensive about nursing school and nursing in general is because I am not interested in the "traditional" areas of nursing such as med/surg, ER, ICU, etc. I've worked in the float pool as a sitter and volunteered on various floors and those environments scare the living you know what out me. I know that with no matter how many years of schooling, I could never handle the stress that seems to be in every acute care medical specialty. I find the theory behind the practice interesting, but I don't see myself ever being comfortable with the hands on skills and acuity of patients.

With that said, I was really fortunate to get a job as a mental health worker at a local, free-standing psych facility. I've worked for a few weeks already and it seems like psych nursing could really be my thing. I work on a crisis stabilization unit and the staff is so awesome and it really is a team environment with everyone helping each other out--something I never saw when I was working in a general acute care hospital. The nurses, while busy and stressed, don't look miserable and when I ask them how they like the work, all of them have said they enjoy psych with a few who have come from backgrounds such as ICU.

I am drawn to psych for a few reasons: emphasis is placed more on the psycho-social components of the patient, rather than acute medical problems. While the patients I have seen do have medical issues, they are pretty basic such as htn, diabetes, ciwa protocols and occasionally superficial wounds from people cutting themselves. In addition, I am also drawn to psych because of current and past struggles with mental illness. I have struggled with depression and anxiety since I was a little kid (now 25) and it feels so nice when I go to work and talk with the patients, build a rapport and see them as people that were dealt a tough hand as opposed to weirdos that talk to themselves.

My goals are to finish school, hopefully get a job where I currently work (a place that is very new grad friendly in the saturated market of southern California) and try to find my niche. After working a few years in psych, my ultimate goal is to get into public health nursing as epidemiology and health education are passions of mine.

Those of you currently working as psych nurses, did you start school knowing you wanted to work psych and really no where else? How did you get through school with all of your peers wanting to do more traditional areas? During orientation, I was eating lunch with some people and we got to talking about areas we are interested and I said I really could see myself liking psych and everyone looked at me like I was a little off my rocker.

I know I can get through school because I am a hard worker and do find the theory interesting and I think I should be able to get through clinical knowing that it's a necessary part of the process and I'll learn things I can apply elsewhere but I won't have to work in those areas in the future. I know psych nursing is very stressful but I see it as a different kind of stress. Instead of stressing about sending multiple patients to and from various diagnostic procedures, copying with stat labs and orders and tube feedings and iv starts, and dealing with acute medical situations, 'll be dealing with the multitude of different kinds of stressor in psych but ones that I think I'll handle well. Am I being naive in the way I am going about nursing? Any feedback would seriously help so much.

[Krzysztof]

I entered nursing school with the precise goal of specializing in psych, just as some classmates had their sights set on other niche settings such as labor/delivery, NICU, OR, etc. Of course we absolutely love the limited class & clinical time dedicated to our areas, but also work hard to develop an understanding of all the others. It makes for a nice foundation.

I'm not trying to provide false assurance here, but I'll tell you that I enjoyed and benefited from every single clinical assignment I had. Especially the ones I dreaded most, because I learned a lot about myself and my abilities in areas that previously intimidated or bored me. I've come to realize that the entire nursing school experience can only be as good as you allow it to be. I know that's cliche, but it's so true.

One piece of advice for school: avoid overly negative classmates like the plague. Run, don't walk. There's a million reasons why. Just remember it. Carry holy water and wear garlic if you need to.

BTW - I love your screenname and wish I'd taken it first.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Those of you currently working as psych nurses, did you start school knowing you wanted to work psych and really no where else?

No. I thought I'd be a peds/nursery nurse when I graduated, but then I did my pediatric rotation and learned that working with kids got to me too much. I ranked Psych just above L&D...and I would rather walk upon hot coals than work L&D (no offense to L&D nurses--I just don't have what it takes to work it and I know it). Having a sub-par clinical experience in psych didn't help.

But when it came down to it, I went with psych over a PCU because psych had 8 hour shifts compared to 12 hour shifts, and I had a toddler at home and a somewhat single parent most of the time (better half in military and deployed a lot). So I took the psych job with the intention of moving on after a year. But I fell in love with the specialty, and here I am 7 years later :)

I feel like I interact with my patients on a far more personal/direct level than I would have been on PCU or a lot of other specialties. That's because therapeutic communication is one of our tools. It's not just medications or technical skills. Though I do have to start an IV every now and then.

[Nurse_Gee]

HaHa! Absolutely not! I remember sitting in my psych clinical rotation in the milieu thinking "I will never work in psych!" I worked many years as an Army Nurse where I got burned out of Emergency Medicine, Surgical ICU and PACU. I was even considering quitting nursing because I felt so burned-out.

A friend of mine who worked in psych suggested I pick up a few shifts at her job as a PRN nurse. My first response was NO! She assured me that it was the furthest thing away from blood and guts that she could think of in nursing. Then she suggested that I make it clear that I only wanted to work in substance abuse and not crises stabilization. I suppose she could tell that I was a bit weary of the psych ward. The nurse manager who interviewed me assured me that she would keep me in substance, which she did for the first 2 years.

Then, I got deployed and when I came back, my new nurse manger floated me to the other units at the hospital. The wards consisted of crisis stabilization units, an eating disorder unit, a dementia unit, and a children's ward. To my surprise, not only was I comfortable, but I loved it. So much so that I went back to school for psychology with the intent to become a psychologist... Just finished my BA in psychology. Debating on Master's in psychology then PhD or psychiatric nurse practitioner.

Ask me 10 years ago if I would want to be a psych nurse and I would have looked at you with furrowed eyebrows and crazy eyes. Ask me now how I feel about psych and my face lights up and I'm pretty sure there's a gleam in my eyes... at least that's how it feels to me. Good luck on your endeavors.

[pinkiepieRN]

I actually picked up a job as a PRN MHA in nursing school because I was simultaneously terrified and curious about working with psych patients before my psych clinical in the fall. It was a great learning experience but I spend the first year thinking I really wanted to do peds. And then I was in adult psych. Now I'm combining both of those dreams and doing child psych. It's a process.