Restrospective

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I feel like I could write a book with the stories I have and I have only been working in psych for a few months. I love my job. Does anyone else feel like they were meant to be a psych nurse from the start?

I feel like it takes a special person. Let's be real you can scan the heart to see a blood clot but you cannot scan the psych. Give it on up for psych nurses :)

I am a new grad and I knew from the moment I started nursing school that I wanted to work in Psych. I believe you get out of it what you put in to it! I start my new position in a state psych facility in 1 week....excited, scared, motivated to learn. I will keep you informed on how it goes.

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Specializes in Psych.

Yep always wanted to be a psych nurse here too. I didn't plan on starting in psych, planed to get my "one year med/surg experience" but it just so happened that the psych job I applied for hired me while I was getting absolutely no bites from med/surg units. So I started my career in ACT (Assertive Community Treatment). Sorta like mobile treatment, but way more intense. I developed a lot of long term relationships with many of those patients and it was so hard to leave them behind when I started at my job now. I work at a free standing psych hospital now, on all the units. Inpatient is definitely different, but still great just the same. I feel like I have the complete picture. You see them at baseline in the community, you see them decompensate, you send them inpatient, they hopefully get better there, and then back out into the community. So Ive seen it all! At my last job, I only worked with adults, now I work with all ages and I love love LOVE working with the adolescents, which is really something I thought I never would like.

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I can't wait to be a psych RN. My entire career has prepared me to enter this field.

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I'm arguably crazier than the patients. Highly functioning, but BSC! I love psych.

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Specializes in Psych.

When patients/ others ask me why I work psych... Im honest. My mouth would get me in trouble elsewhere. But seeing as I am recognized on patients perception of care surveys a lot of the time, have patients seek me out for 1:1 even when I am not assigned to them, and have a low number of aggressive situations while I am on the shift, apparently the majority of my patients appreciate me "being real" as most of them call it.

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Specializes in Psychiatry.

Yea I have been told that other types of nurses look down on psych nurses. Forget that I think we are just as much nurses as any other specialty

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Specializes in Psych.
Yea I have been told that other types of nurses look down on psych nurses. Forget that I think we are just as much nurses as any other specialty

They forget until they want to transfer someone to the unit and as they are giving report say I dont know how you can work psych.

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i love working physch been doing it about a year. i don't know if i could ever go back to any other nursing

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Specializes in Psychiatry.

We had a floating unit clerk the other day who had nothing but respect for us. Made me feel good.

I think psych is harder than other specialities. Think about it. You can scan a heart to find a clot and fix it but you can't scan a person's psyche.

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