Becoming a MH nurse

CharlieRN · Jun 12, 2006

Hi All,
I will graduating a year from now, and we have been asked to pick a hospital where we would like to our pre-grad. I love MH nursing (I am even working as an Extern in a MH unit for the summer to help me gain experience) and I know that I want to work in it when I am completed school. I have heard the ongoing debate that a new grad should try and have a couple of years of general med-surg nursing before going to another specialty such as MH, and I was hoping to get some opions on this.
Thanks,
Kristen
I don't know what I will decided eventually but I know that I will make sure I am happy doing whatever.
Also in Ontario I have to wait two years after graduation to get my masters, and I would like to get it specilizing in MH, so I could work in a med-surg unit and then go back to school of my MN in MH.

Since you already are on the masters track, I would recommend, if possible, a year of med/surg followed by a year of emergency dept, before going back for the MN.

As I have said repeatedly, in the psych setting, the nurse is the medical expert. Patients may very well live or die on the strenght of your emergency medical assessment skills. Best you have good ones.

Guest717236 · Jun 12, 2006

Hi kristen,

I agree, its important to get a year of med/surg first.

I worked on a surgical floor in a teaching hospital for one year.

A position on a crisis intervention team became available in my

hometown. I took the position and it involved both outpatient

assessments and a small inpatient unit. Our patients were

from all age groups , with many different medical issues, as well as

psychiatric.

Good luck with your future education and work plans!!!!!!!!!!!!:balloons:

Balder_LPN, LPN · Jun 13, 2006

I am graduating LPN school next year. I plan on working in a lockdown civil commitment Detox center for 1 yr and then returning to RN school for 1 yr while I continue to work part time. With my RN I would like to do some med/surg nursing and then go back to MH.

I'm not wrong in assuming that the Detox center is considered Mental Health nursing am I? also would I be wrong to be thinking I will be getting some (at least limited) med/surg skills, as these types of PT's getting a civil commitment to detox are likely to have numerous other health problems related to alcoholism/drug abuse (ie uncontrolled diabetes, malnutrition, HTN, decreased liver or kidney functions, infections/abcess's, recent hospitalisations etc, etc)

CharlieRN · Jun 15, 2006

I am graduating LPN school next year. I plan on working in a lockdown civil commitment Detox center for 1 yr and then returning to RN school for 1 yr while I continue to work part time. With my RN I would like to do some med/surg nursing and then go back to MH.
I'm not wrong in assuming that the Detox center is considered Mental Health nursing am I? also would I be wrong to be thinking I will be getting some (at least limited) med/surg skills, as these types of PT's getting a civil commitment to detox are likely to have numerous other health problems related to alcoholism/drug abuse (ie uncontrolled diabetes, malnutrition, HTN, decreased liver or kidney functions, infections/abcess's, recent hospitalisations etc, etc)

Detox is deffinately psych nursing but it does have a strong medical component. Your assessment is right on. Your clients will be very sick with their detox and concurent medical problems related to being addicts and being in the social strata that gets involuntarily put into detox. You should be prepared to have some fatalities. Also be prepared for a low to nonexistent "success rate". People with addictions don't get better until they want to. When they want to get clean, then they have a fighting chance.

The unit you discribe sounds pretty intense. Frankly it sounds like a hell hole. Hopefully, as a new and inexperienced LPN grad, you will never be the person in charge. But I would not put money on that. Underfunded, municipal detoxes tend to run with minimum staff, so putting an LPN in the charge role would not surprise me.

Balder_LPN, LPN · Jun 17, 2006

Detox is deffinately psych nursing but it does have a strong medical component. Your assessment is right on. Your clients will be very sick with their detox and concurent medical problems related to being addicts and being in the social strata that gets involuntarily put into detox. You should be prepared to have some fatalities. Also be prepared for a low to nonexistent "success rate". People with addictions don't get better until they want to. When they want to get clean, then they have a fighting chance.
The unit you discribe sounds pretty intense. Frankly it sounds like a hell hole. Hopefully, as a new and inexperienced LPN grad, you will never be the person in charge. But I would not put money on that. Underfunded, municipal detoxes tend to run with minimum staff, so putting an LPN in the charge role would not surprise me.

I am going to go down and take a tour of the facility in the next few weeks. It is a brand new private facility that contracts with local governments, I beleive. They have also been advertising for RN's, so I think a RN probably runs the floor, but that is something I will be sure to ask when I go.

I understand about the success rate with drug/alcohol abusers. My own brother has been a using drugs since about 13 years old, progressing to IV cocaine and speed usage by the age of 19, and heroin and full on street living junkie by his mid-late 20's. At 37 now he has almost 3 yrs clean, but this is after his 3rd detox/treatment and who knows how many incarcerations.

Thanks for your feedback, but I really cant wait to work in that "hellhole" alot of nurses tell me I am "crazy" to want to do psych, but for the longterm I dont see myself anywhere else. (though I just started a volunteer gig in our ER, and I enjoyed that way more than I would have imagined, but even then it is the psych pt's that intrigue me the most. Last night was an older (than me) veteran who had cut his own throat with a box knife then called the ambulance, I just wanted to sit and talk with him, he needed some attention but other than the mental health nurse no one really took the time to attend to HIM, just his wound)(you could see his trachea and larynx when he spoke, he had about a 5-6" laceration at the very top of his throat, and it all really gaped when he spoke. Live tissue sure is different than all that stuff we dissected for A&P)

Balder_LPN, LPN · Aug 7, 2006

Well, I have been volunteering for a couple motnhs now in our local 30 bed ER. Talk about getting exposure to psych! alcoholics, drug addicts, attempted suicides, paranoid schizophrenics, depression, I dont even know all the dx's I have seen yet. The nurses have started having me sit with some of the psych cases (esp the ones who wont stay in bed and wait for the doc or whatever we are waiting on) just make small talk with them and keep them occupied so they dont keep bothering the staff or disrupting the ER.

I have seen some of the violence and the frustration involved too. (like the homeless alcoholic who wants to go to detox. but he left detox yesterday and they have rule that he cant return for 72 hrs. he doesnt qualify for one of the 17 beds that cover 5 counties in the secure dtox facility. So he becomes involuntarily detained untill his BAC is less than .08 and he goes back to the street. I wanted to find out where he would be on monday and go find him and take him back to detox. (but I felt that would be really getting too personally involved, and overstepping my bounds as a volunteer, and might even get me in trouble with the hospital as they have a strict rule that volunteers cant provide any type of direct care to pt's))

I really think with more education I can help some of these people, and this has reinforced to me how much I want to be a MH nurse. I am going ahead and getting my CNA so I can work in the ED as a tech while I finish school!

RNin2007 · Aug 10, 2006

MH nursing is somewhere I NEVER thought I would find my interest in...but, I am also considering it. I did my clinical rotation (11 weeks) in a small (18 bed) acute care psych unit at the hospital and really liked it. I am now working there as a MHA (Mental Health Assistant). I will graduate next June, and I am considering working there part time. I agree with other posters that the med-surg experience is important...I don't want to pigeonhole myself into a specialty as a new RN. I've been advised as well to work med-surg and if I want to do psych nursing, to do it part time, or on-call. I think that is what I will do...but still undecided! My other MAJOR interest is NICU. What a combination huh??? I'm actually realllllly struggling to make up my mind altogether because I like so many areas of nursing! I hope it becomes more clear as I roll into my senior year.

I really do love the psych unit though. It's a dingy, old, and sometimes even stinky unit lol but I love the nurses who are there (many 15-20+ year RNs) who love their job as much as the day they started. I also love working with the patients - it is an area that is highly misunderstood by many people and I find it extremely interesting and challenging.

~J