Long story short, my sister has decided that she wants to become a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. She has a master's in psych, and believes this will be an easy thing to achieve, but she just simply doesn't want to clean poop.
I do assist with peri care, sometimes with a tech, and sometimes because the tech is with another patient. It's not the biggest part of my job and it is not the worst part of my job. It gives me a chance to assess skin issues, to change any bandages that may be on the coccyx, and to let the patient know that I'm there no matter what reason they need me.
I tried to explain this to her, and she just doesn't 'get it'. I get this idea that becoming an NP is practically the same as a MD to her, and that worries me. She'll learn, I suppose. I just hope that she will understand that assisting a patient at a time when they can't even go to the bathroom by themselves is not a bad thing. It's not horrible to help someone. It's what we do.
I'm just bothered by it. Thoughts...comments? Ways to make her understand? all appreciated.
Uhhhh, no, certified nurse midwives are certified nurse midwives, not nurse practitioners. Very different role, very different scope of practice. The point you may be trying to make is that both are advanced practice nurses. There are four advanced practice roles, CNM, CNS, NP, and CRNA, all with different, specific roles and scopes of practice. All are advanced practice nurses; they are not all nurse practitioners.
It depends on your state. In OR there are three types of APRN licensure: NP, CRNA, and CNS. As such, in OR CNMs are NPs. They're educated as NPs, they're trained as NPs, and they're licensed as NPs.
Specializes in psych, addictions, hospice, education.
While there is poop with psych patients, it's almost always related to medical issues, not psychiatric problems. The only time I ever had the experience of poop smearing was an Alzheimer's patient who was impacted, took care of it herself, and didn't know where to put it afterwards. Psych patients don't fling and smear because they're psych patients...almost never.
Gosh, where do some of you work?
I don't like to clean poop. I can understand wanting to avoid it if possible. That doesn't mean a person won't do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.
Dontcha think this thread has taken on a life of its own???
If she's as bright as you say, I think she will definitely get through nursing school. She can also get through nursing school with minimal poop cleaning or no poop-cleaning as well. Like someone said, she won't have to deal with poop if she works outpatient NP. A highly psychotic person will not show up to an appointment to sling poop at you. Chances are, they are doing something bizarre in the neighborhood and will be picked up by police to be brought in involuntary to an inpatient hospital. The ones that go to the clinics and attend outpatient are more stable. But who knows? maybe she will change her mind in school.
I work in a private psych hospital, the patients are not as bad but as a RN I have a lesser chance of being hit with poop. I have never had a patient thrown their poop at me or my staff or smear it on the wall, doesn't mean that it has never happened before to others in psych but it's possible for one to work in psych without ever having to deal with poop. I did clean up poop when I was orienting at this current job but I just wanted to help out the team, but if I wanted to avoid poop completely, I definitely could have.
Frankly, if you don't have a grasp of the humanity involved in managing poop, then maybe you shouldn't be writing prescriptions that can alter a person's life irreversibly.
I suggest you ask any physician you've ever met how much time and effort s/he has spent in training and over the course of her/his career cleaning poop. Should they also not be writing scrips?
It depends on your state. In OR there are three types of APRN licensure: NP, CRNA, and CNS. As such, in OR CNMs are NPs. They're educated as NPs, they're trained as NPs, and they're licensed as NPs.
You're right, different states have different idiosyncracies about the terminology they use for licensure, but that doesn't change the basic organization within the larger nursing community. OR licensing law may lump them in with nurse practitioners for licensure purposes, but that doesn't make them NPs in any meaningful way. If they were "educated" and "trained as NPs," they wouldn't be eligible for CNM board certification.
Oregon midwives certainly appear to consider themselves CNMs and not NPs, regardless of the odd terminology the state may use.
You're right, different states have different idiosyncracies about the terminology they use for licensure, but that doesn't change the basic organization within the larger nursing community. OR licensing law may lump them in with nurse practitioners for licensure purposes, but that doesn't make them NPs in any meaningful way. If they were "educated" and "trained as NPs," they wouldn't be eligible for CNM board certification.
Oregon midwives certainly appear to consider themselves CNMs and not NPs, regardless of the odd terminology the state may use.
I'm not entirely certain what you mean. In Oregon CNM is an NP specialty, so it's no more surprising that they consider themselves CNMs (since that's their specialty) than it is that I consider myself a psych NP. It's not an either/or proposition. They're trained in the APRN consensus model as an NP, they have the prescribing privileges of an NP, and their practice is regulated according to state law governing NPs. They have further education beyond the requirements for all NPs within their specialty as a CNM that makes them eligible to sit ACNM boards, just as I have further education in my specialty in psych that makes me eligible to sit for ANCC boards. For lack of a better comparison, it's similar to the way gynecologists and psychiatrists are both MDs but differ in their advanced training.
Of course, this is all muddled by the way the world of nursing wants everything to be its own specialty, so we also have women's health nurse practitioners (WHNP) who are focused on the lifespan versus the reproductive years. However, a lot of schools (Yale, Georgetown, UCSF, etc) offer them as a single, combined program because they have a considerable amount of overlap in their practices.
How can you convince someone who doesn't want to clean other people's poop, to want to clean other people's poop? You can't. Its like saying: Hey, I don't want to get slapped in the face every morning at 7 am, can you somehow convince me that it's a good idea please?
Tell her not to worry, CNAs mostly deal with that stuff. Which isn't actually a lie.
Then, when she goes to school and finally makes it to clinicals or her actual job, one of two things will happen:
1. She finally does clean poop and realizes that it isn't that bad. Maybe she feels good for helping.
2. She is disgousted and can not continue. She finds another career.
Not wanting to clean poop doesn't automatically equal a lack of compassion, sense of entitlement or inability to be a good nurse. Refusing to do it if the opportunity presents itself would.
There certainly are nursing positions that don't deal with poop. I am a NICU nurse and I haven't cleaned big person poop since school. Aside from my family, I'm pretty sure I never will, either.
Not wanting to clean poop doesn't automatically equal a lack of compassion, sense of entitlement or inability to be a good nurse. Refusing to do it if the opportunity presents itself would.
There certainly are nursing positions that don't deal with poop. I am a NICU nurse and I haven't cleaned big person poop since school. Aside from my family, I'm pretty sure I never will, either.
Yeah the posts here are kind of going crazy and making a lot of judgmental assumptions. I don't like cleaning poop either, but it doesn't mean I am entitled, lazy, uncompassionate, or a bad nurse. I cleaned poop in school but I am happy that at my current job I don't clean poop.
In order for her to become a psychiatrist, she'll have to go to medical school and complete years of residency. Now that's a lot of work because psychiatry is different in education and practice from psychology. I think what jadelpn was asking is why she won't just go for her PhD/PsyD and become a clinical psychologist? It would take a shorter time and effort (since her background is already in psychology). Or she can become a mental health counselor which doesn't require a doctorate. Can't really grasp why she wants a career change at this point. Mental health counselors and clinical psychologists are less likely than nurses to clean poop btw.
Dogen
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It depends on your state. In OR there are three types of APRN licensure: NP, CRNA, and CNS. As such, in OR CNMs are NPs. They're educated as NPs, they're trained as NPs, and they're licensed as NPs.