Registered Psych Nurse in BC

[EC'Smama]

I am a 28 year old female and I've had an interest in becoming a nurse for several years but had put plans on hold after having my son.

I am absolutely keen on focusing on the mental health/psych area of nursing and am looking to obtain a 4 year Psych Nursing degree via Kwantlen Univ here in BC. I've been advised by my aunt (LPN) to forget about becoming a Psyc Nurse because they are not well-respected and even viewed as being "flakey" (?) and instead to become an RN.

Before I continue let me say that I am fully aware that A) a Psych Nursing Degree is not recognized outside of W. Canada and

B) as an RN I would have many more options and could very well specialize in psych nursing/mental health if I so choose.

There are several reasons that I'd like to pursue an education in Psychiatric Nursing, the main ones being that I have strong a passion and fascination for the complexities of the human mind, body and spirit and that this specialized field of nursing would allow me to focus and become a true expert in this area; I have dealt with family being afflicted by mental illness and because of that I have an unwavering thirst to learn everything I possibly can about it; and the last (and least influential) being that I simply do not want to be put on a 2-4 year waitlist to get into a BsN program.

My questions are: Are RPN's (reg. psych nurses) NOT well-respected? Is it difficult to obtain employment?

I'm currently working on prereq's and my goal is to enter the BsPN pgrm in May 2012.

Any advice, thoughts, info ---anything!--would be appreciated tremendously! :)

[Matt511]

I'm an RN working on the mental health unit.

Naive RN's will say something about RPN's, but then they are the first one to moan about having to deal with a pt that has psych issues, and say that patient should be moved to the psych unit. It ****** me off to no end that people still think there is such a difference between mental health and physical health. You'd be hard pressed to find mentally ill people with out medical issues, and medically sick people with out mental health issues.

Now personally I am happy that I am an RN, it offers a bit more opportunity in terms of places to work. As an RPN, from my knowledge your stuck to psych and long term care. Nuts to what old school RN's think.

[EC'Smama]

Thanks for the reply Matt. As an RN do you feel as though RPN's are looked down upon and/or not given much credit or respect? I realize that yes, RN's have a vast amount of knowledge in almost all areas of nursing versus RPN's which specialize in primarily mental health, inevitably narrowing the "open windows" available to RN's...

What my aunt (who is an LPN) is insisting on, is that Psyc Nursing is not a respected area of nursing. This just does not make sense to me! How can that be accurate? Just as an RN, I am making the choice to dedicate 4 years to a very intense and, from what I'm told, an incredibly trying and challenging program, not to mention forking out a couple pennies in the process (though I'm aware that the latter doesn't necessarily guarantee $ or recognition )

I just need some insight, some info, some advice from somebody OTHER than my aunt who isn't the most reliable source.

My question is this:

RN? Or RPN? I want to specialize. I want to become an EXPERT on mental health. But obviously, I also want to be employable when I get out of school.

Thanks for any responses!!:redpinkhe