Psych rotation? What should I expect?

RescueNinjaKy · May 19, 2014

Hello, I do not think that every clinical rotation is the same but they should be similar so I'll let you know how mine was. We weren't allowed to do anything medical for the patients. For the most part I stayed on the inpatient floor and basically my day consisted of going to sit in on nurses rounds, then into the collaborative rounds where the psychiatrists, psychologist, social workers, and nurses discussed the patients progress and plans. After that we usually shadow a psychiatrist or nurse to their interviews, which could be admissions, discharge, or general psychotherapy. During this we mainly just listen in and if we had any questions we could ask afterwards. We also participated in their group therapies, or art/dance/medications group too. In between we sat with patients and just practiced therapeutic communications.

During our rotation we got to go to the psych er, outpatient wellness center, and court room for one day each. The psych er we just shadowed the psych er nurse and see the process of psych patients in the acute setting and whether they get transported to inpatient or not. In the outpatient setting we saw the follow ups, group therapies, and depot injections. In the court we got to see how the hospitals file and bring to court the patients in order to get legal permission for involuntary admissions or court mandated medications.

Overall it was a very interesting experience, and don't be afraid of asking questions or talking to the patients. Remember that it isn't like med surg so therapeutic communications are very important.

smf0903 · May 19, 2014

Our psych rotation was very similar as well. We also did not wear scrubs (we were told it was because the patients felt "institutionalized" when staff/students wore scrubs...even the staff nurses wore regular clothes) I think everyone expects the psych rotation to be something like out of a movie, but ours was so NOT like that (and I was A-OK with that)...we had people who were in because they were depressed, addicts who wanted to get clean so they threatened suicide to garner a spot on the floor (rehab spots are ridiculously difficult to come by in this area, so now we have addicts taking spots away from people with mental issues...probably doing neither group a bit of good, but that's a whole n'other topic!) We got to speak at length with patients, and many of them were rather interesting people! We still did a kind of prep tool for whichever patient we talked to in-depth. We did not pass out meds but still had to write out med cards for our patient's meds. I actually got to catch a med error while I was there and was able to see the positive outcome of the rectification of the error! We had a patient who was there for at least half of the time we were assigned to the floor. The patient was a one-on-one nearly the entire time we were there, was erratic in behaviour, wouldn't bathe, you name it. Anyhoo, so like the third or fourth week we we there I thought it'd be interesting to look at that patient's info...I was admittedly curious about the patient. So we ended up getting permission to go talk to the patient, and I did my prep tool/med cards on that patient that particular week. So when I looked up the meds at home I found that two of the meds opposed each other (I don't remember what they were but, as an example, one was a dopamine agonist and another was a dopamine antagonist). So, when I questioned it the following week when we turned our paperwork in, our instructor was like "Huh?! That's odd." So she looked into it and here the patient had been given one of the meds when they came through the ED, and apparently the ED doctor didn't know the patient was on this other med. The patient was taken off the med prescribed in the ED, and was discharged a couple if days later, lucid, cooperative, and back to "normal", after lying in some stupor for nearly a month.

Anyway, that's my cool story from psych rotation You'll be amazed at how engaging the patients are. When we would walk in, the patients on our rotation would always be like "Oh here come the students! Get ready to talk!" LOL

Hope you have a great experience!

RunBabyRN · May 19, 2014

No scrubs for us, either. We dressed business casual, and had to be conscious of necklines and tightness of clothing. We had a variety of outpatient sites we went to, as well as psych emergency services (there wasn't an inpatient psych unit in the area, but there is now), and the patients usually really enjoyed us. We'd get the time to talk to them and listen to their stories. It's a great lesson in therapeutic communication. It was a very relaxed rotation for us. I really enjoyed it, much more than I thought I would. It was far less skill-oriented, and much more about the communication. I was a little scared (I'm sure I had classmates who were terrified, but I'd had an internship in a locked facility years ago), but I left intrigued by psych, and actually might pursue it part time in my career.

LoriRNCM, ADN, ASN, RN · May 19, 2014

What ? No Scrubs? Yippee!!!! I'm starting my psych rotation in a couple weeks, I hope that rule applies to us too!

Sparrow91 · May 20, 2014

Like everyone else said no scrubs. We also did not do a lot of the medical aspect but we were assigned to units and we would sit and talk or play games with the patients. We also were also assigned a patient, not so much to take care of but to look up their histories. We were also rotated to different out patient clinics such as ECT, Suboxone clinics, AA meetings, ect. It was a very interesting experience. You will learn a lot. Good Luck! :)