finness

well, i kina like 'em! but then, i believe true professionalism is rooted in the ability of the nurse to practice with compassion and respect for the uniqueness of every individual. besides, "taste" is a hard thing to regulate.

A lot of hospitals in iowa are unionized. I dunno much more since I'm not working yet!!

sheesh! you just may have opened a can of worms. firstly, you are in the company of hard working, capable men and women who were called into this profession for a variety of reasons. not everyone is "here" to fulfill a life long dream; some are here to pay the bills, support a family, or just to land a secure job with benefits. it's perfectly okay to use logic when making major life-altering decisions. i am sure your parents concerns come from the greatest of love and intentions; love them, listen to them, and know that ultimately you will be the one who has to live with your decision. isn't it possible for you to be diligent and take your scholastic opportunity as a time to explore your prospects as a young adult? nursing will teach you that there is not always a definate solution to any one problem; often it's a matter of finding the best fit! secondly, do not assume that nurses are simply aspiring doctors who didn't make the cut. they are entirely different professions, and provide entirely different services. bristle. good luck!

nurse ratched, you are one smart cookie! i like that adage a lot...

so would you say that a med-surg background is especially important here?

Thanks...I wasn't aware that worked for mania, too!

I have heard there are a lot of state based tuition repayment programs. For example, if I agree to work in the state of Iowa after graduation, they will pay back my loans. I bet your financial aide office would be able to help you with this.

how is different? how should one best prepare themself?

I am a student nurse (22) but recently one of my clients asked me how old I was. When I told him, he said, "Oh, I thought you were a kid. I thought I got a mini-nurse!!" LOL. :rotfl:

According to the Narcanon website on methamphetamine (couldn't find on cocaine, although I would guess the effect would be fairly similar): "...Users tend to become increasingly dellusional. These effects have been reported to last for months, and in many cases years, even after usage ceaces."

So sad. How does this happen?

my experience in this department stems from my father's abuse of methamphetamine. he was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age 39 after having very similar delusions. nearly three years later, he is still taking veritable cocktail of medications--including ablify to suppress the hallucinations. he is in prison now, so he's both clean and medicated, but still the hallucinations persist, and the psychosis is as intense as ever. i can't tell you whether it is permanent, but i can tell you, that i hope for our sake and for the ones we love that it is not. if anyone knows what damage these drugs cause that results in this sort of disorder, and if the results are permanent, please let me know, too!! p.s. my father also insisted that there were cameras in the ceiling fans. you're story is too uncanny. how the heck does this happen?? :uhoh21:

from reading other posts, it doesn't sound imperitive, but helpful. med-surg is recommended for valuable medical assessment skills, but depending on your facility guidelines, may not be necessary. have i got it about right, guys/gals?

yes, to some patients, chemical intervention is crucial. for others, it is ineffective, fruitless, and yes, even dangerous. it is the responsibility of a competent psychiatrist to determine the appropriate therapeutic intervention...be it chemical or traditional talk analysis. one of the pitfalls of psychiatry is that treating a patient with extreme depression, ocd, mania, personality disorders, or anxiety is not as exact as setting a broken arm. psychiatry, for better or worse, is highly dependent upon vigilant, skillful professionals providing the care best suited to the patient. may we all be involved in the process of healing...

how very exciting! i am keeping my fingers crossed for you! you are right--the people drawn to psyche probably have had at least some experience with mental illness. can you blame us? very few people decide to be horse trainers without ever riding a horse. ok. bad analogy.

i am soo green! why would even extreme mania elicit use for est?

by the way, zoloft!?!

gynocemastia is typically permanent, even after drug therapy is discontinued-unless the adolescent opts for surgery. i can't comment on whether or not medicare would foot the bill. i found a list of drugs of which gynocemastia is a common side effect. i didn't see risperedal listed! you can find more information at: http://www.gynocemastia.org adalat and adalat xl amitriptyline anafranil carbamazepine chlorpromazine cimetidine (tagamet) i am hearing a lot about this drug causing severe gynecomastia. i know of no studies. another source of infomation. adverse reactions. clonazepam elavil fluphenazine decanoate humegon nutropin prostate cancer drugs infolink protriptyline protropin spironolactone thiothixene zantac¨ information:safety zoloft

Cheers! Happy for both of you!

"Hardly a very helpfull response to a lady whom is obviously in distress. As a UK-based mental health professional with extensive experience of both acute and psychiatric rehabilitation clients, within both in-patient and community-based settings, I absolutley agree with the comments posted by CliveUK." Well, SNAP, I guess you told me!!! I tried to be as helpful as possible in my TWO previous replies. How silly of me to have added that off the cuff one-liner in response to CLIVE about personality disorders being present in many, but more pronounced in some. From the sounds of it, I am not NEARLY as polished and professional as you. I didn't realize that we were limiting our responses on this board to those with the appropriate credentials, rather then those with personal experience and empathy.

thanks, laughing fairy! i was being slightly sardonic when i called them "happy" pills. i too, have reaped the benefits of antidepressants. to you and i, who truly need them, they are functional pills--to pharmaceutical companies and silly pdocs who prescribe them willy-nilly, they are merely "happy" pills...and quite profitable ones at that! lysorke brings up a good point. when is trial and error good enough? only after every last intervention, but as lysorke, testifies, i believe it too often doesn't work that way--especially in juveniles. there is certainly a huge difference between transient depression in pre/teens that are already inclined toward volatility, and chronic, major depression in adults. so why are they treated the same? i get the feeling a lot of this has to do with the vulnerability of the diagnostic process. are we too quick to say chemical imbalance?

i tend to agree with you. i think where science made its gravest errors in letting pharmaceutical companies coin the term "chemical imbalance" to sell a few billion dollars worth of "happy" pills. true--we may only have an imprecise understanding of neurotransmitters and their effects on the body--but hey, what we do know is that drug therapy does work for many, many people. so why toss our artificially engineered contentment out the window? i think the medical community needs to admit when they're wrong and move on. cheers and thanks for your thoughts!

Probably psych. Or maybe Public Health.

so, should they stop treating depression with chemicals or should they just treat more carefully? thoughts, opinions? sorry if this has become a topic of mild fascination. i do not want to hijack the board!

Reducing the Brain, Ignoring the Soul Grace E. Jackson, MD December 5, 2002 There are at least five problems with the chemical imbalance model of mental disease: 1) the model ignores the reality that there has never been a consistently reproducible biological marker, to substantiate the levels of normal or abnormal neurotransmitters in the human nervous system 2) the model fails to respect the enormous complexity of neurotransmission in the human brain: a) there are over five kinds of dopamine receptors which have been characterized to date, and even the best researchers know nothing about the D5 subtype b) there are five separate kinds of cholinergic receptors c) there are fifteen different kinds of serotonin receptors d) neuroscientists do not yet understand the relationship between neuroreceptor density, sensitivity, or neurotransmitter turnover 3) the model fails to consider the fact that many of the neurochemicals which are presumed to be the basis of "mental disease" are, in fact, broadly distributed throughout the body. This fact casts doubt about our conceptualization of "brain tissue" (perhaps it is not limited to the cranial vault) and also raises questions about the reliability of serum or urine tests, as those assays may be capturing levels which reflect non-brain locations of neurotransmitter activity: a) over 90% of the serotonin in the human body is made by the enterochromaffin cells of the stomach and small intestine, rather than the raphe nucleus of the midbrain and pons b) a broad variety of cells in the human body possess receptors for many of the neurotransmitters, including white blood cells and platelets 4) the model fails to acknowledge the impossibility of measuring discrete events in the human brain, due to the speed of neurotransmission; and due to the relative bulk of our measuring devices, relative to the size and complexity of each synapse 5) the model fails to acknowledge the impossibility of explaining the brain in reductionistic terms. That is to say, the organic whole may so far exceed the sum of the component parts, that science will never be able to fully explain the workings of this magnificent system. Part of the problem here is that the brain is never capable of being studied in a vacuum - the system is forever open, due to the conscious, and unconscious, processes of the subject who is being observed. Part of the problem, too, arises from the phenomenon of diaschisis, or non-local effects, through which changes in one part of the brain reflect, and then precipitate, complex cascades of events in multiple locations throughout the nervous system. Thus, it is impossible to speak of serotonin or dopamine without analyzing the interactions of all complex chemicals, peptides, and amino acids upon each other, but far too little research has occurred to study the gestalt of these intercommunications.