is psych "alot" less physically demanding than med/surg?

Nanaie4ever · Feb 28, 2006

Like all of nursing, it depends on many factors - the patients, the # of staff, the milieu. Generaly there is no heavy lifting in psych. BUT, depending on which age range you work with, there are restraints. We still have many on the adolescent units and children's unit. Even though everyone is trying to cut down on the # of restraints, sometimes there just is nowhere else to go with a particular client to get him/her under control. Some places, will let you be primarily the med nurse and all you would have to do is prepare any meds ordered and then give either PO or IM while the support team is holding the person down, or sometimes after they have the person in restraints. So it can vary from day to day, as every nursing position does. Some days we go home in tears, some days laughing, some days just a little down and some days feeling like we have "saved" someone. So there is qute a mix. Hope this helps. I know a woman who has MS and has successfully kept a full time psych position for the last 15 years. She works out keeps in shape and takes her meds. So there is hope. Good luck, Teh

RN1263 · Feb 28, 2006

thanks for your reply...

i don't have a problem w/ burst of energy- like holding someone down....

it's the "constant" standing, bending, and lifting w/out sitting at all for hours that i can't take :uhoh3:

thanks again

elkpark · Feb 28, 2006

Well, the "traditional" answer to your question is that yes, psych is less physically demanding than med-surg nursing. You don't routinely do bedbaths, make beds, lift patients, etc. However, the trade-off has always been the intermittent, sporadic bursts of vigorous physical activity -- having to wrestle out-of-control or assaultive patients down to the floor, carry them to seclusion rooms, and wrestle them into restraints. If staff members are not able to carry their "fair share" of the physical effort required in those situations, they are putting themselves, the patients, and other staff members at risk of injury.

So, there is less day-to-day, routine, expected physical demand; but when it is physically demanding, you often don't have the time/opportunity to figure out an alternative way to accomodate the physical limitations of a staff member, and everyone's safety depends on the staff members being able to do their part.

Nowadays, though, the "traditional" answer doesn't apply as much as it used to. More and more inpt. psych patients are gero patients or patients with concommitant physical problems (in fact, it's pretty hard to get admitted to an inpt. psych unit these days unless you fall into one of those two categories), and more and more psych patients require more "hands-on" nursing care. Shoot, specialty gero psych units are not much different than working in a nursing home!

Of course, I'm speaking of inpatient psychiatric units, and outpatient psych jobs are less physically demanding (just as office/clinic jobs, while still "med-surg" nursing, are typically much less physically demanding than working on an inpatient med-surg unit).

If you are interested in psych because you're looking for a less physically demanding work setting, I would not advise inpatient psych as a good choice.

GooeyRN, ADN, BSN, CNA, LPN, RN · Feb 28, 2006

I worked psych for about a year. Child and Adolescent psych is very demanding. I wouldn't recommend that since you are frequently literally carrying children to the time out room and adolescents are really strong and hard to wrestle down. And when one goes off, several follow so it can be a crazy shift! Gero-psych you will sometimes have to help lift, shower, and change depends. They usually have multiple medical issues to deal with as well. The chronic unit usually had 2-3 take downs per shift. Some of those patients were so out there they needed help with the most basic things. The dual diagnoses unit was not heavy physical work except for the occassional take down. (Maybe one or two a day, not a shift) HTH.

RN1263 · Feb 28, 2006

thanks for the replies-

yeh, i'm not interested in adolescent or gero psych anyway.....plus, i can see how they'd be more physically demanding! i just want to reinerate that i physically could do take downs, ect.

it's the "constant" standing, ect. that gets to me...

putterfly74 · Mar 1, 2006

I feel that psych nursing can be physically demanding and emotionally demanding. It seems in our area outside of Pittsburg PA Psych nurses d o not get the respect that they deserve. Medical nurses don't want to deal with the Psych patients..that is a disappointment as it goes against why I became a nurse Putterfly74:confused:

spaniel · Mar 3, 2006

Being a 53 year old, I cannot imagine the rigors of working med/surg. I was in great shape in my 20's/30's and it was still tough going. The unit (CCU) was a bit easier. In psych, we generally had plenty of backup. Now, with this said, geropsych is a big difference. There is typically NOT much backup there.

Most of my nurse friends are in their fifties. A prime spot, say "they', is the PACU. I swear-these jobs are hard to get.Typically one needs a few years of med-surg first. But certainly there might be exceptions,depending on the local.Good luck.

SFCardiacRN · Mar 3, 2006

I think med/surg is the hardest job in any hospital...period. God bless the med/surg nurses because they are overworked and under appreciated!

mariee · Mar 5, 2006

HI

I read all the enteries. thank you for sharing, it helps us gain perspective. I am hoping for a psy nursing job, but never thought of the issues mentioned!

M

rn/writer, RN · Mar 6, 2006

need honest opinions...
i'm in nursing school and my med/surg rotation is killing me (i have multiple sclerosis)......my body is screaming in pain at the end of 4 hours!
...is psych nursing also physically demanding? or mostly mentally demanding?
.... how tired are you physically at the end of the day?

I did psych nursing for many years--all ages. Child and adolescent can be pretty demanding during days and PMs. I worked night shift and did a lot of QA things besides monitoring the patients. That's one possibility for you.

The up side of working third shift on a child/addy unit is that you can set boundaries for the kids. The adults can stay up all night if they choose and that gets to be a pain. Another plus is that you don't usually have too much trouble finding a job if you're willing to work nocs.

The down side is that kids can and do get up in the middle of the night and that can be a problem if the staffing is less than adequate.

If you take a psych job, find out up front what kind of safety and security measures you will have. How many people can float to your unit in a crisis and what kind of "panic button" mechanism is there? If the answers aren't to your liking, keep looking.

Have you considered clinic nursing? School nursing? What about day surgery, dialysis, postpartum? There are many areas of nursing that don't require you to be able to bench press a Volkswagen.

You might want to look into job shadowing in different areas. It's as important to find out what you DON'T want as to pin down your eventual goal.

I wish you well.

Orca, ADN, ASN, RN · Mar 6, 2006

My last hospital psych job was on a geropsych unit. The original concept was that we would not accept patients who were not ambulatory or able to care for themselves. This lasted until someone figured out that we could fill a lot more beds by accepting virtually anyone with Medicare. The unit basically became a nursing home. We had bedbound patients, incontinent patients, people with no prayer of benefitting from group treatment (Alzheimer's, OBS and other disorders), and patients that nursing home staff were just tired of dealing with. These were mixed with more traditional mental health patients (bipolar, depression, schizophrenia, etc.). The unit became an unmanageable hodgepodge of mismatched patients, and I left.