MentalRN74

From the CDC CLIA Regulations:Sec. 493.1423 Standard; Testing personnel qualifications. Each individual performing moderate complexity testing must-- (a) Possess a current license issued by the State in which the laboratory is located, if such licensing is required; and (b) Meet one of the following requirements: (1) Be a doctor of medicine or doctor of osteopathy licensed to practice medicine or osteopathy in the State in which the laboratory is located or have earned a doctoral, master's, or bachelor's degree in a chemical, physical, biological or clinical laboratory science, or medical technology from an accredited institution; or (2) Have earned an associate degree in a chemical, physical or biological science or medical laboratory technology from an accredited institution; or (3) Be a high school graduate or equivalent and have successfully completed an official military medical laboratory procedures course of at least 50 weeks duration and have held the military enlisted occupational specialty of Medical Laboratory Specialist (Laboratory Technician);

Everyone in our hospital who provides patient care recently had to do this. Even the PCT's. Anyone who might check a blood sugar or collect a urine sample, or do anything concerning lab had to do it. It had something to do with CLIA standards. Either a high school diploma (or higher) or a transcript was required. A lot of people fussed, but everybody eventually got over it.

Good luck is all I can say. I spent 7 years working for a UHS facility and the quality of the workplace went down year after year. Best of luck to you.

A friend who just gave her 2 week notice at the UHS facility that I used to work at talked to me last week about the staffing. On day shift they are running a unit with 23 acute patients with 1 RN, 1 LPN (med nurse), and 1 tech--insane! Census has to reach 24 before they are allowed a 2nd RN. I can't remember the specifics for the other shifts, but they were just as crazy. That might explain their concern/reason for a high turnover rate in nurses. I know I'll certainly try to NEVER work for another UHS facility. Good luck in your job hunt.

I was a UHS employee for 7 years, with about 3 years of that being in management. Sadly, I wouldn't expect any of your hopes to come to fruition. Sure, they will be discussed. Even planned on a committee, but never followed through on. Google them and lawsuits just to get an idea of the problems they will bring to the table. Hopefully, I will be completely wrong. Good luck in your career.

As a former UHS employee, all I can say is Good Luck to you guys.

I often add something about: -whether they make eye contact -what their appearance is like (neat or disheveled) -that even though they deny any hallucinations they seem to be responding to internal stimuli AEB talking to and laughing at unseen individuals -whether or not they exhibit insight into the reason for admission or their pre-admit behaviors -that encouragement was given to be or become more active in the milieu -somatic with numerous physical complaints (which many adolescent females are- for years I worked with adol) -admits to having thoughts of harming self, no plan, and agrees to come to staff if she begins to feel like acting on the feelings -made vague verbal threats to peers or staff But Davey was correct, your format is good. We use BIRP, so that's what I'm used to seeing. I'm like you, sometimes I get a group of patients (I work with adults now.) that just sit in their rooms and don't *do* anything or really even say anything. It makes it hard to chart anything but the basics on them. Good luck with your psych nursing career, and welcome aboard!

Good luck with your nursing career! I also went straight from graduating to working in child/adolescent psych--on night shift (and was promoted to house supervisor within 6 months). I used my down time to read the charts to learn more about things I wasn't familiar with. I also picked up extra shifts days or evenings when I could so that I could get some "real" experience with being with the patients when they were awake. I love psych nursing and I love working nights! As far as the violence goes...yes, I have been injured a few times, never anything major, but like many have said: you can get hurt working as a nurse on most any unit where you come across an angry patient. Hopefully, when you get ready to have a baby you will have a supervisor who will look out for you. If things every started looking like they were going to get bad, I sent my pregnant nurses to another unit, or had them take their patients to another area of the hospital til things calmed down. I wish you the very best in your nursing career, and hope you enjoy psych nursing as much as I do. People are right when they say that it takes a certain, and sometimes special kind of person to do the work we do. --Anita--

Hi Tammy! I too went to work at a child/adolescent psych facility directly out of nursing school. I ended up going to work at the hospital where I did my psych clinical rotation. I just knew during my clinicals that psych was where I wanted to be. In the beginning, I related really well to the patients due to my own age of 21yrs--not much older than some of the patients. The experience can be both very rewarding and very emotionally disturbing at the same time. I have to say that working with the adolescent female population is probably the most difficult. The only thing predictable about them is that you can never predict what they are going to do. Working with the younger, child population is usually the more disturbing and sad part of the job. But, I wouldn't trade my experience for anything. I'm now a Weekend Nursing Supervisor at a 98 bed psych facility, but I still work one shift a week on the child/adolescent unit. It's almost a different kind of "stressful" than working on the adult or detox units. Mainly, it's just putting up with adolescent "attitude" and the hyperactivity and oppositionality of the little kids. I do like my time spent with the adult population. (My office is on one of the adult units with the higher acuity.) This is where you will see the truly psychotic, depressed, borderline, and often, quite entertaining bunch of patients. I'm not trying to be insensitive in saying this. Some are very humorous, witty, and even sarcastic patients. The other part of this is that sometimes you just gotta laugh at some of the situations to keep from losing your own mind. I'm confident that if you enjoy working with kids, you'll do fine in this area. Just remember to set and enforce limits, and follow through with consequences. These kids can smell "new blood" the minute you walk on the unit. Never let them see you scared or emotionally out of control. They will test your knowledge of programmatics and rules--be prepared. They will attempt to split staff to work you guys against each other. And manipulation is the name of their game. I learned to initially rely on the experience (and often, expertise) of the Mental Health Techs who work with these kids day-in and day-out. Ask them for input and advise. Good luck and keep us updated on your progress!

Yes, antipsychotics such as Abilify, Risperdal, Geodon, Risperdal, etc are known to cause increased triglycerides. At our hospital, we run a lipid panel on all admits who are on any antipsychotic, or anyone who is started on one to determine a baseline. I would keep an eye on it.

What bothers me are the admissions we get from detention who know that if they say they are suicidal, they will get to come to the hospital and any days they spend there will count as "time served" on their sentence. This takes beds away from people who truly need treatment and could benefit from an inpatient stay. And of course, we also have the "frequent fliers" who are discharged and though they can't afford their prescriptions, can afford heaven knows how much cocaine daily (oh, and they can't afford to go to a dentist and want us to treat this problem in a psych hospital). It's the patients who feel like the world owes them everything that really get to me.

Bridgeway Hospital in North Little Rock, AR