Second Chance RN

I'm a bit late to the conversation, but I wanted to add some encouragement. I knew I wanted to be a Psych Nurse from ½ thru school, I was hired @ a state psych hospital and have been there almost 2 years. The first 6-8 months were just tough, finding my way, charting, practicing all the therapeutic stuff I learned in orientation, S/R, med cocktails, physical and verbal aggression, etc. I am on an Acute Stabilization Unit we have 28 beds, generally 2 RN's, 1 LPN, and 2 techs. Charting, treatment plans, and close ops took some time to master, but it has all gotten much easier. Talk to the experienced staff, find out how what they do that saves them time. Pt populations on an acute unit fluctuate one week is awful with demanding addicts who decide after being pink slipped they "really don't want to detox" and start throwing chairs....fun, fun. The borderlines, and behavior issues, finding out that your pts had sex on your shift....that is fun to explain. It gets better as you experience all that the human psyche has to offer, and you as a nurse learn to cope with it all. Good Luck

Nursing is HARD WORK. Different specialties = different challenges and a slightly different skill set. I work in a State Psych hospital ½ of which is forensic/long term patients, I have been there approx 1 year and finally feel as if I am finding my way and providing competent safe care. I love the patients, watching them improve makes my heart/soul happy. Psych patients are a challenging diverse group: Substance Abuse, Personality Disorders, Developmentally Delayed w/ Impulse control/anger issues, PTSD, just to name a few. I continue to ask questions, I seek to gain a better understanding about all aspects of nursing. As nurses we all have our horror stories, they may look and sound different, but on any given day I wouldn't want deal with a med-surg or ICU crisis just like I don't necessarily want to deal with a psych crisis. The goals are the same; to restore a patient to health in whatever form that takes for your patient. "Studentnurse 9806" I hope you find your calling, and I hope you are welcomed by compassionate nurses whose desire is to mentor novice nurses, and provide excellent nursing care to patients.

I am a new grad and I knew from the moment I started nursing school that I wanted to work in Psych. I believe you get out of it what you put in to it! I start my new position in a state psych facility in 1 week....excited, scared, motivated to learn. I will keep you informed on how it goes.

Amber, Hold your head up high! You graduated from NURSING SCHOOL, that in itself is tough! The only advise is have is to continue to do practice tests. There are NCLEX books that can be checked out of the library, I probably did 100-200 questions a day for about 2 weeks before the test. If you have an iPhone you can get free Lippincott apps that also have tests and rationales (not always correct, but I've seen wrong ones in the books too). Hopefully you will get the report from Pearson that shows where your weakness' are, and that can help direct your study plan.

I took the NCLEX earlier this month, 75 questions, I marked on the white board every SATA..... I had 27!!!! If I remember there were a few that had 7 - 9 options. I used the true/false system to answer them. I passed!!!