Left psych but still get the psych patients

[Mandychelle79, ASN, RN]

So I went from inpatient psych to med/ surg at the beginning of the year. I know psych patients can be anywhere but I can definetly see how my approach differs from those who haven't worked psych. I recently had a patient who during introductions stated I'm going to be a pain in your... I said well I worked psych for 7 years so you can try. Apparently I was the only nurse he didn't give a hard time about things to. He definitely had a antisocial (my abosulte favorite Pd) or male borderline (I can handle make borderline better than female) flavor and mix in the hx of addiction and pig got my favorite type.

I also recently had another pain patient who wasn't getting the answers. I explained/educated him and his wife about why the drs couldn't order more, why it seemed like not working, etc. While he did not get what he wanted he atleast understood why things were going how they were.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Bless your heart! Psych was never my cup of tea, and I have difficulty with even mildly crazy patients. (Obviously psych diagnosis isn't my thing, either.) Have you thought of giving an inservice to your colleagues re: how to recognize a borderline personality and how to best work with them?

[Orca, ADN, ASN, RN]

The sobering thing is how often that my mental health background has come in handy in managing employees.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Psych patients are everywhere. Embroider this on a pillow.

I'm sure you'll also getting to see how ignorant (or I suppose I should say unprepared) your coworkers can be when it comes to psychiatric illness. Most think the answer to any and all psych issues is Haldol/Ativan and restraints, and sadly that's all they'll try.

They're also quick to label patients. You have no idea how many times I've had a non-psych nurse tell me a difficult patient "is a borderline" when said patient isn't exhibiting any cluster B traits. But in these nurses' minds, difficult to deal with = borderline personality disorder. Sometimes its true, but a lot of the times it isn't.

[NurseLife88, ADN, RN]

I once had another nurse tell me that every patient is a psych patient, they just don't all get admitted to psych. This was more or less a joke but I think I may have some backing in reality....