Psych NP what kind of experience?

Editorial Team / Admin · Mar 5, 2017

Thread moved to Student NP.

elkpark · Mar 5, 2017

There is some "overlap," but not enough to equal actual psych experience. There are plenty of people who will tell you you don't need any specialty experience, but plenty of us who have actually spent our careers in psych would advise you to get some significant amount of real psych experience. Without any actual exposure to the "real world" of psychiatric treatment, how do you make an informed decision that you want to go into the specialty?

kj954 · Mar 5, 2017

Thank u for ur reply...I was thinking the same thing because a lot of employers ask for relevant Psych RN experience in their job descriptions

oceanblue52 · Mar 5, 2017

You will indeed find Psych patients everywhere, but managing a whole floor of them is very different from working a Med-Surg floor. If you pop over to the specialty Psych forum you will find a lot of great discussions about this.

HikingNinja, BSN, MSN, DNP, RN, APRN, NP · Mar 7, 2017

I'd at least get a per diem psych job on the side. It will not only help you gain experience with medically stable psych patients, but also allow you to establish contacts that can help you get those coveted preceptors you'll probably need to find yourself for your PMHNP. I'm in a PMHNP program now. I have an MS in psych, then went into ER nursing (purely fell into it, that's were I was offered a job, there were few for new grads in my geographic area when I graduated). I got alot of experience with crisis ER psych patients, but have added a per diem inpatient psych job to round out my experience. I'm working with the usual depression, bipolar, schizophrenic, etc. But I'm also getting experience with populations I've never really worked with before. I've found I really like working with eating disordered and TBI with concurrent mood disorders.