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.
Sounds like she has a lot of opinions and preconceived notions regarding psych as well as nursing. She will have to find out for herself that there's poop and then there's POOP. I'd much rather take the brown stinky stuff than the unreasoning fears and the broken people for whom we can't just "clean it up".
You love you sister and you are working to educate her but she's a tough nut (pun intended? Well, in hindsight, of course. I'm a nurse and know everything and act like I do.) We all have patients and residents like this. So, you do the best you can, decrease the damage, and smile and cry sometimes.
If poop bothers her, it's not the right path. Psychiatric NPs do earn more than a master's educated psychologist but that's because of their medical specialty. They are nurses first and foremost. Nursing school is hard and stressful, as you know. I remember once doing nursing rounds as a student nurse and the hall I was walking down reeked of poop! Another student nurse walking in the opposite direction looked at me and said with a big smile, "Nothing like the smell of poop to really wake you up in the morning!" and we both laughed. Poop, pee, throw up, colostomy bags, catheters, pus, drainage, smelly bodies, blood...oh lordy! Before I started nursing school I thought to myself, how the heck will I deal with needles! I had a big fear of needles. But it was part of the job and I just had to get over it. You can just let her find these things out herself, maybe you should. Sometimes when you try to convince someone of something, they dig their heels in. Let her find out.
Like others are saying, she'll find out very quickly if nursing is for her once she hits that first semester of nursing school -- especially if she shares her plan of avoiding poop with her nursing faculty! Who knows? She might surprise you (and herself) in her abilities to tolerate the less-pleasant, but highly necessary aspects of nursing care she will encounter on her journey toward her ultimate goal. Funny if she ends up being a GI nurse or something :). It happens ...
I'm curious as to how many NPs have HAD poop strewn, smeared or flat out thrown at them in a psych ward? I know of one Physician who had. I think thats what a few of us here are trying to point out. Behavioral health is a whole other ball of wax. Even if an NP isn't cleaning a pt, it doesn't mean they won't have to deal with poop on them. It happens.
Those of us who don't want to deal with poop mean it in the sense that we don't want our regular duties to include cleaning up our patient's poop. Having poop thrown at us by patients is a different issue. Anyone going into psych should be aware that poop throwing patients can be an issue.
Tell her for me that there are many things in this world that smell worse than poop. I will never forget the guy who smelled of a mixture Swiss cheese, unwashed feet, rotted meat and body odor and that smell people have when they wash their clothes by hand and the put them on before they're completely dry.
I also have have a vivid memory of a time in nursing school when I brushed a patient's teeth that hadn't been brushed in a good long while. But it was very rewarding because he was going to be treated for thrush but after I brushed his th all they saw as pink, healthy tissue and he didn't have thrush after all. He just needed to see the business end of a toothbrush. But i felt good that I managed a problem with an easy solution and the doctor and his nurse were thrilled. I felt like a rock star that day.
A a couple of weeks ago there was a bed pan snafu and I found myself catching a patient's diarrhea in my hands because we just changed her sheets. I felt worse for the patient. She was mortified. I feel such compassion for those situations and I made me feel good to be able to reassure her that it was fine. It's just part of the job. I like it that I helped her restore her dignity. That's was a great feeling.
Poop is poop. It's not a big deal. You get used to it.
For all those who think NPs don't clean poop, I have been an NP for 10 years and I still clean poop! I round in Nursing homes, and I cleaned 3 people today. In fact, some of my homes call me the "poop Whisperer." It seems that whenever I go in to see someone, they poop. And I will not leave someone laying in poop - it is bad for their skin. It is to the point that one day when I was in a hurry and DIDN'T clean a resident, the STNA reported me to her supervisor! The supervisor had to remind the STNA that even though usually do it, it is NOT my job! LOL!! So even though I might be an exception, some of us do clean poop.
Has she worked around the mentally ill? I have and some like to throw poop at you or other bodily fluids like semen in inpatient settings or vomit on you after having an ECT treatment. The only place she might be safe is in the clinic.
The whole " I don't want to...." riff preceding interest in nursing is a huge red flag for me. The nursing students in my class who had this attitude washed out in less than a year. It says a lot about what the individual thinks of the value of each life. I've worked a lot of different specialties and even in psych you encounter all manner of body fluids.
The advice I give to everyone who asks is that if you can't function as a CNA you have no business in nursing.
Specializes in Psych, case-management, geriatrics, peds.
I agree with your sister. And, as an aside, there are plenty of nursing jobs where even RNs don't have to clean up people's #2. And there is not that much of this in nursing school. Not only are nurse practitioners treated with much more respect than RNs, ( I am not saying this is OK by the way) but they have their choice of many, many jobs and yes, they are not forced ( inhumanely ) to work overtime like RNs are. Plus, they CAN choose to work 9 to 5. There are countless 9-5 positions for psychiatric NPs. Your sister has a masters in psychology, I am guessing that she has worked around psychiatric nurse practitioners and observes what they do. Additionally, nurse practitioners in general don't do nurses aide type work work like wiping peoples butts. In fact, RNs want so badly to be considered professionals, yet they allow themselves to be treated often like a doormats. In discussing bedside nursing, especially, What other professional would allow themself to be forced to work overtime, barely take a mealbreak in a 12 hour workday, barely take care of bodily needs such as going to the bathroom for hours on end, be treated horribly by their management, coworkers, clients etc. Hospital and nursing home nurses might as well be slaves. When was the last time you saw a physician wipe somebody's butt? Being a nurse practitioner is a whole different ballgame professionally.
Depending on where you work as an NP, you may have a certain number of patients you have to see to keep up your "quota." And while I usually only am away from home for a 40 hour week, I have 15 to 20 hours of charting I have to do in addition on my own time. So I regularly put in a 55-60 hour week, and have "productivity" reports with goals I have to meet, "profitability" reports telling me how much revenue I bring in compared to other practitioners (have to keep it up.) And yes, I can take a lunch break if I want to, but that just makes it harder to get home at a reasonable hour, so I carry crackers or pretzels and granola bars and beverages and eat and drink between facilities. Life as an NP is not as wonderful as it appears. I am seriously considering going back to floor nursing so I can do 8 hours and go home (and I am quite aware that it is actually more like 10 hours, but I would be DONE when I got home - I worked the floor for 23 years.) And yes, I like being an NP but the paperwork gets more ridiculous every year. It is the paperwork that is killing me. It would be even worse in psych.
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fnp2b369
25 Posts
I'm an OR nurse and I work Monday through Friday, 9:00-5:30.