Mental Health Interview

I have rotated in a mental health unit ,and I can confidently say: this is a specialty all of itself. You are no longer working with signs, but strategic symptoms, because you are working with an individuals mind. You have to be able to discernibly distinguish between what is fact based, and what accompanies this individuals mental health diagnosis.

The position is rewarding, and challenging all in itself. As family members become a lot more involved in their family member's healthcare with the onset of mental illness.

I work outpt psych, but my job is much different than a clinic job. In a clinic, I imagine you would be getting charts ready for the pdoc, doing a mini mental status exam/psych assessment on the pt, get them ready to go in and see the pdoc/pmhnp, possibly hand out samples as ordered. You will probably be giving a lot of long acting antipsychotic injections.You will be responsible for med/diagnosis teaching. I am an ACT (Assertive Community Treatment) nurse. We see the sickest of the sick in he community. We do a lot of teaching, we prepared medication for delivery to the clients, handle prior auths, do psych assessments and focused physical assessments on clients with somatic concerns, giving the IM medications, and doing treatment planning/case management for a small caseload.

I have an interview in mental health tomorrow, and am freaking out. I have been job hunting for 7 months and have not came across a single offer. I hope this will be a break.

I have an interview for a FT Mental Health and Addictions Program RN position and this will be my third interview following an LTC Facility and a Complex Continuing Care interview (both occasions I got the jobs but big problems related to the position turned up that I had to turn them down).

This is completely different and from what I've read so far it is just far off from Med/Surg Nursing (which I am eventually trying to get at). I am not looking to job-hop anytime soon so I'm definitely applying to stay for some time to learn a lot since I graduated on June '11 and I am JUST starting to look for jobs.

Any idea for the questions they'll ask me? Any NEW RN's who had Mental Health for their first job...care to share your opinions and experiences?

My first RN job was in a Psych/AOD crisis center. I'm still there 9 months later and still like it. It can be very stressful at times but for the most part my stress comes from all the documentation that I can't get done in a timely manner because of such a high census. During my interview they mainly asked me the standard interview questions like "what are your strengths/weaknesses, where do you see yourself in 5 years," etc...The only question that I remember them asking me specifically about psych was something like "what would you do if a patient were getting out of control." I would highly suggest brushing up on de-escalation techniques. You will use these skills all the time when dealing with MH/AOD patients.

Update: got the job at a large Psych Unit and Orrientation starts tomorrow. All I cam say is brush up on the basics of safety