Psych RN's, being phased out???

Specialties Psychiatric

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I'm going to be graduating in 2007 with my BSN. Psych nursing is one of the three specialties that intrigue me. (I know, I'm going to have to make up my mind pretty soon!) I was talking to a friend about my options and she said with absolute conviction and a tone of authority, "Oh, they're phasing out psych nurses, don't do that!" :confused:

I told her that surprised me to hear, as the facilities here in our community are soliciting those of us still in school, practically begging for nurses to hire on.

Has anyone heard anything like this? Her mother was an advanced psych nurse, maybe she was talking about the CNP? The clinical instructor that I respected the most was my psych instructor and she hadn't heard of anything like that.

Just curious.

You know, to me this sounds like something we talked about in a class I'm taking on the history of psychiatry, the idea that 50 years from now there will be no psychiatrists, only neurologists!! :lol2: Just look at the trend: 70 years ago, mental health was about behavioral science and psychotherapy; now the approach is more biological, based on psychopharmacology. This goes along with the associated belief that most MH diseases have some kind of neurological basis that will be established in the future, even if we don't know what it is yet. Remember all the diseases that were once the domain of psychiatrists that were then found to have a physiological basis and began to be treated accordingly - syphilis is the big one, but also pellagra and, increasingly, Alzheimer's. So psych nurses might not be "phased out" necessarily, but their role is probably changing as our conceptions of mental health change. Do those of you who have been practicing for many years see this happen in your work?

I'm curious (because I'm really interested in psych nursing) - how much of your practice is devoted to psychotherapy and social/behavioral aspects of MH, and how much is pharmacology? Or does it depend on where you get your training?

substance misuse services in the UK are generally staffed by mental health nurses & thats an area that certainly isn't diminishing in need.

Specializes in L&D, PACU.
substance misuse services in the UK are generally staffed by mental health nurses & thats an area that certainly isn't diminishing in need.

I think that's true here in the US as well

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