Psycho-APRN
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Good discharge planning can go a long way. A stable shelter an IOP program that helps meet their needs. Always remember Maslow. Basic needs play a huge role. A lot of the patients we get are grown ups who grew up in the foster care system who are very institutionalize and need help learning how to live outside of a hospital or institution.
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Learn the policy of who next to call if a patient needs a PRN or transferred and utilize it if you are left in the lurch by the one on call. I am the back up to the call person for the medical director. There are many lives that have been saved by a nurse who didn't go with what the on call doc said. Develop a trusting work relationship with all of your colleagues. Trust can be the difference in an emergent situation going south quickly. Try to not get involved in the day shift vs night shift squabbles. It is everywhere in nursing but seems worse in psych. It usually results in the patients suffering not the staff.
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Addicts can really suck the empathy out of you. Self care is super important. What I have a hard time with is the doctors or NPs who continually feed these addictions, not the addicts themselves. I work inpatient and get frustrated when I have to cover for a doctor who will take someone we just detoxed from benzos and put them right back on a benzo and not low dose but 2 mg of klonopin at bedtime. It goes against everything I was taught about prescribing. I think if every prescriber could get on the same page all of our patients would be helped.
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I have two patients who hug me every appointment at my SMI clinic. They both have told me this is the only human contact they have and it feels comforting to them. In inpatient with the kiddos we do side hugs once again I take care of a lot of kids who have been in DHS custody for a long time and have not had nurturing contact. I pat their hands when I see them in my office if they are upset. I think sometimes we forget the healing power of touch. I NEVER initiate contact with a patient nor do I even side hug a child where there is not a camera recording it.