bryanleo9

Schools don't teach you how to diagnose. You have to put in hours a day self studying as well as having great preceptors. I don't recommend NP programs if you can't sacrifice hours a day to study. Your future patients deserve that and many doctors do not support np as a legit career. We have to shine.

Lay off ...next to never. One prison lost some RN positions due to a new prison opening and PT's needing to transfer. All these RN's got jobs in other prisons. Most prisons are desperate for staff nobody is going anywhere.

They will just sponser foreign nurses to come here in visas and to them it's the best thing ever. And even if it's not, they can't quit as they sign 2 year contracts and don't want to be deported. I have talked extensively with a foreign nurse who was imported to work in these conditions who now works with me. She said it was hell. And yes care gets skipped all the time.

Thousands of people work full-time and get through np school every year. 8 am to 5pm Monday through Friday weekends off is the worse schedule for clinicals though. Other than Urgent Care, which some programs don't let you use, clinics are closed on the days you are off. Now is the time to consider working non day shift schedule including weekends.

Liek's book is highly recommended here by people that have passed the test.

I have witnessed it and while I was on orientation the LVN said "it was the only way to get all the work done." She combined multiple med passes at one time and wouldn't change dressings or do half of the treatments. Only the alert residents got their treatments. The others had old dressings that the nurses purposely would not date and they would lie if need be saying it was changed. Now the nurses made it clear during state inspections we had to "do the order exactly as it's written." I started working the evening shift and started seeing all the short cuts and it sickened me. I never would do these things so I ran all evening. It is frightening to think of all the short cuts that will take place as the baby boomers start being admitted to nursing homes very shortly. LTC patients deserve so much better than the care they get now. Short staffing, insane ratios that legislators deemed adequate so many years ago ( the comorbidities nowadays are far different and more complex), the greedy business owners and corporations concerned only about saving money and the bottom line. No way could I recommend a family member get placed in LTC in it's current form.

^ great advice.

I found the bf's and husband's rejected male students more than the women.

And like you I would go back if LTC was changed dramatically.

Not many Walden students post here as the school is bashed constantly. If you are concerned about the reputation there are so many other programs out there.

They are all driven by the "bottom line". Saving money at the workers and residents expense. Administrators and owners see numbers, they could care less about patient care.

The current system sure pushes nurses to take short cuts and not provide certain care/treatments. I could not lie like that so I got out of LTC.

I am referring to inpatient and forensics. Outpatient psych patients can easily become acutely ill d/t medication non-compliance which is a huge issue. No matter the setting, the people wanting to complete at psychiatric NP certificate need real psych experience. We have had ER nurses post here stating they are in psych NP programs. When it's suggested they get psych experience they state they have plenty in ER. Reading off a printed ER mental health screening questionnaire is not psych experience. Their future patients deserve better. Good luck my post was not to discourage but to keep it real.

Highly suggest you get psych experience. Real experience. Flesh eaters, testicle removers, feces eaters, patients who cut their wrists and throat etc until they pass out or die. It just may not be for you. I have seen so many psych NP students precept at my work only to quit their programs after being exposed to real psych. There eyes were so bugged out having no idea what they signed up for. There is a very good reason psych nursing is the least popular field of nursing.

^ some of the schools had never even heard of the initiative. After I explained it and the background behind it I got "yeah, that's not going to happen" answers.

As I have posted before, I called six Universities about this initiative. Each one, whether brick and mortar or online, all told me that the initiative was not a mandate and that the students still need to find their own preceptors aka (beg your way into a clinic). Nothing will change until ALL the students report the schools to the accreditation body. The programs think the Sawyer initiative is a joke at this point.

Way harder than RN school by a long shot. We are dealing with a whole new realm of liability and responsibilities. School only prepares you so much. There is massive amounts of self study that is vital to being a component provider. If you don't have hours a day available to readying and knowing the material, a NP program is not a good choice. We owe that to our future patients.

Exactly. A lot of things going on behind the bars. If an LVN who is in RN school wants to work in a hospital, yes corrections experience won't help. Most of us in corrections want nothing to do with hospital nursing. We are here for the pay and wonderful retirement. We enjoy the excitement and aspects of corrections nursing that are so unique. Corrections is not for everyone but for those that thrive in it, the career is very rewarding. Definitely try it before you buy it with a registry agency to see if it's your thing.

In some parts of California FNP are making less than RN. I have posted this and ads repeatedly on this site. Most RN make over 125k a year and the few ads for FNP are 99 - 120k. Sacramento has one of the worst np markets.

I just finished the transition to grad studies class. I really enjoyed it. It kept you busy but it wasn't overwhelming. It was 3 units and the rest of the classes after it are 5 so expect to be busier. I am taking one class at a time as I am in no rush and work up to 50 hours a week. Good luck!

I respect that you want experience before starting down the PMHNP path. I have about 8 years of inpatient acute psych experience and we would get PMHNP students arriving for clinicals. It was as if they had seen a ghost. Upon witnessing the feces and flesh eaters, or guys that would crack their head open from banging it repeatedly against the door these students eyes would be very exophthalmic to say the least. They didn't even get to experience the patients who cut off their own testicles or pluck out their own eyes out before eating them of course. See, this is real inpatient psych. Many of these PMHNP students decided psych just wasn't for them and changed specialties. Psych is not for everybody....in fact it probably has the lowest percentage of RN working in it of all the fields of nursing. I encourage all students who want to become PMHNP to go and see what the job entails before signing up. Many people see what PMHNP make and think they should do that. That is not the case. Axis 2 or 1 , serotonin syndrome or NMS, top psych meds side effects and usage must be mastered. In the outpatient you will have drug addicts constantly trying to get you to to prescribe them benzos or amphetamines for their kids "ADHD." Good luck.

Many of us have left LTC and found success and job satisfaction in a new environment / nursing field. Expect to be floating with relief and happiness your first few months of being in this new spot. Good luck!

You really need a strong psych RN background to be working inpatient with suicidal and self injurious behavior. See if you can go per diem in psych.

Volunteer to go onto an inpatient acute psych unit to see what it's like. Outpatient can turn acute quickly.

I found a post of my LTC experience from 2006, under my old LVN account. Anyone considering LTC please read this thread. I changed to this account name after getting my RN license.