Psych77

I may see 5 people with chest pain in a day. Most are fake; for us we need a doctor on site to do an EKG; so at night, we just have to go by vitals, our assessment, age, IM's history, and bulls*** meter. If everything looks good, they are young, and bs meter is high, we give them mylanta, send them back to their unit, and tell them to contact us again if symptoms don't go away or worsen. Our inmates are charged for each visit 5 dollars, but some of our nurses forget to have them fill out the paperwork that ensures they get charged the money. Oftentimes, just by handing them the paperwork to fill out, their chest pain goes away. I think every facility is different; if a doctor is on site, we do ekg, then if needed aspirin, o2....and/or ship them out to ER. It really depends. Some prisons have an infirmary also, so they may be sent there, but that's usually if they are stable.

If I were you I would totally just study for a couple months, get all the help you can get with courses, study groups, tutoring, whatever you can do. I failed a semester in school (days before graduation), and it sucked but I repeated it the next year and passed. It really sounds like you will make a great psych nurse. There are jobs in for people with bachelors degrees in the psych field, but I think they are more rare and won't pay you like a nurse (and probably hire psychology majors).

5 dollar gift card for Subway, paid for by our nursing supervisors

I stopped trying to convince them that its justified, it never goes anywhere. You just have to tolerate that they are upset with the system and you are the messenger. On a positive note, a lot of nurses I work with forget to have them fill out the proper paperwork so they are charged; I always try not to do that, because I notice that it cuts down on inmates coming in for nonsense complaints. Our sick calls are $5 dollars.

yes its saltpeter. However, I seem to remember that some anti-depressants reduce sexual performance in men.

Psych patient with disheveled hair sprawled out in different directions, and a wide eyed kind of stare, "I haven't slept in seven years". She would say it every day, like a mantra. Of course she's observed sleeping every night.

Hopefully you can study and get that 92%. I flunked out of my last semester of my ADN. They let me go back the next year, and I finished and am now working. I met a lot of people who repeated courses and then finished. I would also say most nursing students use drugs...meaning caffeine!

So those in corrections know we deal with fake chest pain, fake abdominal pain, fake seizures, fake everything all the time. My latest technique I just discovered is....making them wait while I monitor them. Sometimes I'm not sure if something is real or fake, and if I should call the doctor or not. I've noticed that with several inmates that they just can't stand this, and eventually they will say they are fine and "can I go back to my unit now?" Obviously I would not do this if there were the possibility of a true emergency, but in some cases it has worked without endangering safety. Any other thoughts on how to rule out malingering?

when I hear this, I sometimes think: 'correct....I'm not a female. thanks for clarifying publicly to the world for me.'

haha...they told us that too...I tried it for one day( maybe even for one patient?), and it felt so absurd, and then I realized that no one else is saying this.

I was just talking about this with the nurses at work; people were saying, don't get the insurance (unless you are rich), because lawyers can find out you have it and sue you personally instead of just the prison.

But everyone you work with is a con:chicken: (convict)

nurses eat their young

This is why I don't get my BSN; I suspect I will pay 15K and learn theories.

I used to do the same thing at my psych rn job (now I'm in corrections). It seems appropriate rather than...what you said, socializing in the nursing station, which is what generally happens. I guess nurses and doctors feel that they just do the medical side, let the therapists do the mental/emotional stuff. Its a grey area I think, because sometimes we are too busy with medical/nursing care type things, but sometimes in psych you have a lot of extra time which you could use to help people.