New to the Mental Health field

[larien37]

Hi everyone! I'm an LPN who recently just started in an outpatient behavioral medicine unit at a local hospital and although I'm very excited this is whole new territory for me. I was working in OBGYN for the last 3 years so I'm trying to school myself on as much as I can absorb in mental health to make my transition easier. I don't know any fellow nurses in the field whose brain's I can pick like I had in OBGYN so I wanted to post on here to see if there were any helpful on the job tips, advice, etc that will benefit me. Right now with the change in field I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed lol

[calsmithlewis35]

I have worked as a psych nurse for over 4 years and as a mental health tech for about two. I have worked in both inpatient & outpatient settings. I've worked in children, adolescent, adult, and geriatrics. I really love working with children ages 5-11. Working in psych can be very challenging at times but also rewarding. If I was you I would review over some of the psychiatric disorders and medications. When I worked outpatient psych it was a little easier because usually your not dealing with 20 to 40 patients at one time. Also, with outpatient a lot of the patients are pretty stable and compliant with meds. I hope this helped if you have more questions feel free to ask. Goodluck.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Welcome to the dark side :)

One of the best things you can do is learn to keep an open mind and not be quick to judge. It can be harder to do than it sounds, and people do struggle with being able to do that in psych, where the disease process isn't as visible to the naked eye (i.e., "they don't LOOK sick!").