Any advice for psychiatric rotaion?

grinnurse, RN · Jun 30, 2005

That was the best clinical time that I had the entire time I was in NS. When I found out we were going I was so excited. The unit that I got was M/F unit all w/ some form of scizophrenia. It was wild to say the least. We were also there on a full moon so that made it even more interesting. These people with these problems can change so quickly it's hard to keep up. I would get exhausted just watching them moving about all the time!!

We were teamed up in pairs for "protection", always watch your back and never put yourself in a position where you can get hurt. At the state hosp that we went, the LVNs passed all meds at the window and the RNs did all the charting, team meetings, etc. The focus for us was again, therapeutic communication, which is extremely challenging at times b/c what some of them say makes perfect sense and others they are way on out there and just trying not to laugh out loud for me was extremely hard. I kind of felt bad that I was laughing and asked one of the RNs on the unit how she dealt with it and she told me sometimes that's all you can do :rotfl: :rotfl: My partner and I were lucky enough to get patients that were willing to talk. My patient liked to play dominoes so we sat down with him and played and as long as he was concentrating he "seemed normal" but once he had a few free seconds he was talking 90mph.

I definately could see me ending up as a psych nurse in the future. Hope that you enjoy your rotation just as much as I did, just look at it with an open mind. You might want to do a little research on Seratonin Syndrome and I think the other was Neuro-Malignant Syndrome. Both pertain to the psych meds that they use and also being able to differentiate b/t actecholine (sp) and dopamine receptors b/c these are what most of the drugs effect in the brain in some shape or form.

Good luck!!

willdgate · Jun 30, 2005

psych was one of my favorite rotations, you meet interesting people. sometimes you will want to cry, other times you will want to scream. But overall, it was one of the best clinicals.