So I'm a nursing student and we are halfway through our mental health clinical rotation. I am finding it completely boring, and so are many of my classmates. It seems as though the nurses only chart, pass meds, and call the physician, with extraordinarily little patient time. I'm SUPER disappointed by this! Psych has been the thing I've most looked forward to my entire time since deciding I wanted to be a nurse, and it was what I most pictured myself doing when I graduate. I've even accepted a position as a tech at a psychiatric hospital. But psych nursing at the hospital I'm doing clinical at seems insanely boring and I think I'd be bored to tears. So far I've been on both the adult and adult ICU units.
So, I'd like to ask those of you who have experience in the field: what do psych nurses do at your facility? Is it typically "boring"? How much patient interaction do you have on a typical day?
I'm not trying to offend anyone, and I know that psych nursing is not easy work. I'm not trying to make it out to be a lesser profession; as previously stated, I've spent several years wanting to do it when I graduate. But now I'm questioning those plans and would like to get a sense of what people's experiences are so I can refine my sense of what I'd like to do once I graduate.
