New grad eager for new psych position

[Jmira.BSN.RN]

Hi everyone,

I am a sort of new grad (summer 2013) who after a long search and unpaid bills has finally been able to land an RN job in psych.

I applied back in October only to be immediately turned down. 4 months later a new position opened at this same facility and decided to give it another shot with my volunteer experience and BSN in progress status to help me, I got a job offer last week. Of course, I eagerly accepted!

The only hospital experience I have is as a nursing assistant in peds, but I have always had a special place in my heart for psych. The facility is acute care, 187 beds, and very close to home. The pay is fantastic, full time, full benefits. Long story short I want to be the best nurse that I can be here.

If anyone here can offer me any guidance, tips, advice, don't, etcetera, I would be VERY grateful! I will be brushing up on all my psych stuff in the next 2 weeks until orientation starts. But some real-life encouraging words would be amazing. I want to give them 100% of everything that I can and look forward to a long and rewarding career

Thanks guys

[kristyinkansas]

Congrats on the job. I've been in a state psych hospital for a year. I work on the security program and started out on nights on the most violent aggressive unit in the whole place. All of those patients went to bed at 8:00 and I mostly was the babysitter/secretary for day and evening shift. After a few months I got sick of that role and moved to evening shift on the only locked down female unit. Our patients are all from a county jail or state prison. It's been the best move of my life. I very recently had a very close call with a patient who is borderline/antisocial personality disorder, on our unit for evaluation of competency to stand trial for attempted murder. This is the first time in a year I've come that close to getting hurt and it's mainly because I let my guard down and got a little (ok more than a little) too comfortable with my surroundings. Forgetting that yes my patients are sick and need my care and compassion, they are also criminals. This one in particular had no problem reminding me of that fact and that she had no problem doing the same to me as she had done to her victim.

Point of this being not to scare you. Just to remind you to not let your guard down. Unpredictable behavior is just that...unpredictable. My boss told me the next day that she was very glad I wasn't hurt but also wasn't sorry the situation happened. I needed to be put in a situation like that to remember how easy it can happen. I wasn't too happy with this comment from her at first but after thinking the situation over (a lot) this past week I realized she was right. We always need to be mindful that the number one priority of the day is safety. Not just the patients but our own.

We also have emergency alarms, I had forgotten to put mine on before going out on the floor. The whistle on the keys thing is something I will definitely look into seeing if we are allowed to have on our person at our hospital and will pass on to my fellow co workers if we are.

Good luck to you. I hope you love it as much as I do (or more). And stay safe.