Any pediatric psych nurses out there?

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Hey all,

Right now I work on a step down telemetry floor, been an RN for about 8 months now. I have a previous post on how much I dislike it. I've known since about one month out of orientation that this type of nursing is not for me. I'm looking for other opportunities. There is a psychiatric hospital in my city, well known and been in business since like the 1800's.... Is any one out there a pediatric psych nurse? I'm very interesting in this and it would be extremely different than what I do now which is a major positive thing in my eyes. There is also a drug detox unit which interests me, they don't hire very often because nurses tend to love it, the patients tend to sleep a lot.

p.s. If you don't have anything nice to say, get off my post right now.

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I'm a psych nurse and I have worked with all populations. What questions do you have?

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I am a 24 year RN with only one year of adolescent psych experience. facility rec'd IJ on assessments afterrestraints before I started working here. Little to zero education on documentation. read evLOVEerything I can find online I think. Any help or resources would be greatly appreciated.

Also, LOVE LOVE MY JOB!!!

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This is so broad, what types of resources do you want? Example of restraint policy? Assessment

AIMS

Psych meds

Patient education

General policies

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4 hours ago, Tasha.RN.BSN said:

I'm a psych nurse and I have worked with all populations. What questions do you have?

I’m wondering if you enjoy your job, if you have worked on the regular med surg/step down floors and how you enjoy psych compared to those regular floors? Were the children usually violent? What did your job involve?

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3 hours ago, carap566 said:

I am a 24 year RN with only one year of adolescent psych experience. facility rec'd IJ on assessments afterrestraints before I started working here. Little to zero education on documentation. read evLOVEerything I can find online I think. Any help or resources would be greatly appreciated.

Also, LOVE LOVE MY JOB!!!

Thanks for replying, what do you love about your job? Have you worked on the regular medical floors or always psych?

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2 hours ago, Tasha.RN.BSN said:

This is so broad, what types of resources do you want? Example of restraint policy? Assessment

AIMS

Psych meds

Patient education

General policies

I want to know if pediatric psych nurses enjoy their jobs, how high the stress level is compared to the regular hospital floor, what type of day to day responsibilities do pediatric psych nurses have.. any information helps at this point

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I apologize for the brevity of my post. I work 12 hr nights and just doing a little research as I can. Just stumbled onto allnurses right before falling asleep.

I am interested in any/all information I can get. I rec’d next to nothing as far as training for this position. I am afraid I might have thought psych would be not much different than my previous positions in med-surg, rural hospital, hospice, and LTC. (The perils of thinking you know what you’re doing in nursing after 25 years). Oops!

Nursing challenges with psychiatric adolescents pulled me right off my high horse. On to your questions about specificity...

I am most interested in documentation surrounding the physical restraint. Before starting at this PRTF, they received an IJ for failure of face-to-face assessment within the allowed time frame and it seems that as administration is expecting the return visit, we are just now getting training needed. I want more, however.

Any will help. And as I said before, I absolutely LOVE my position and my patients.

Thanks,

Cara RN

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I do enjoy working in psych, I have worked as a direct care nurse, nurse manager, and director of Behavior Health. The child/adolescent population can be aggressive, expecially the girls. I have 16 years experience and I have been hit 3 times. Once by a 5 year old, 15 year old, a geriatric.

In psych as the RN you are primarily responsible for assessments. LVN/KPN medication aids pass medication. You could facilitate some groups (nutrition, medication management, side effects to report ect).

Now depending on the department, you can have a variety if diagnosis and dual diagnosed.

Crisis 5-10 days very busy turn around us high. Lots of admission and discharge. My favorite

Residential 2 weeks - years build more of a rapport, not as busy more violence, court ordered or compelled to treatment. My favorite too

ICF- intermediate Care Facilities this is where majority of people with intellectual disability live. A lot of hands on care, can be medically fragile

Forensics -Long Term or sentence, have been found guilty by reason of insanity. I have never worked Forensics before.

I have worked on acute rehab and med/surg the physical stress is unbelievable. In psych nursing you do more talking and reassuring. I hope this helps.

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I’m not sure I am qualified to answer your question, but I do enjoy having and building a rapport with my patients. I work in the very south part of Arkansas, and we do not have medication aides here. That would be so glorious. Lol. I have a unit of approximately 60 girls with varying degrees of need. I started there last March, and I have been hit 3 times and kicked 2 times already. None of which even hurt. Being raised with brothers, my defenses are on point. Lol.

I can’t put my finger on exactly why I love this position so much. It is oftentimes heartbreaking. But then there are days when I’m leaving my shift, I wonder who helped who the most...

Cara

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Usually it's a check sheet to complete after 1 hour (face to face) depending on the policy RN can complete the face to face. I can look to see if I have an example.

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Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).

I work adolescent psych and I love it. Yes I have worked Medsurge, tele, home health and ID/IDM group homes. As a general rule the kids are not violent. The exceptions are some kids on the lower end of the autistic spectrum, and some kids on criminal probation for violent crimes who use the mental health system to avoid going to jail ie "... If you take me to jail I'll kill myself."

Most of the kids you will take care of are just pathetically sad victims of poor parenting.

I do love them all though.

Hppy

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