1st Psych Job Soon!

CharlieRN · May 24, 2006

Hello all!
I've been hired at Redlands Community Hospital to work full time NOC on their psych floor.
I was told there's 17 beds with 2 LVNs and 2 RNs on each shift.
That seems like a fairly reasonable ratio to me.
Can anyone tell me what sort of things I can expect on a shift?
Thanks! I'm nervous because I'm used to working in assisted living.

Unless I have some idea what population this psych unit serves it is hard to advise you.

Assuming that since it is a "community hospital" they are serving a "general adult psych" population. I'm a bit surprised at the staffing at night. It seems a bit RN heavy. At night on a 28 bed gen/psych unit I was alone with an aid. I was supposed to have a second RN but she was usually floated to somewhere more acute.

Safety is always the prime consern in psych. Ok, safety is always the prime concern in any nursung job. Unlike med surge however the psych population is physiclly healthy so the kind of observations are different. You are unlikely to need to do vital signs more than once in 24 hours unless the client is medically compromised, say by ongoing alcohol detox. You will need to know that staff has seen every patient at least every hour and verified that they are breathing and are where they are supposed to be. (Our routine checks are q half hour, but in some situations q hr might be ok.)

We generally feel that the night shift is sleep time, so we do not expect the night staff to engage the patients in threaputic interactions. It is the night shift's job to direct them back to bed. That is what is theraputic at that hour. So work on how to make a brief assessment of the pt's current status and tactfully redirect them back to bed. A little snack, some herb tea, a brief shmooz, and back to bed.

Usually the RN's job is the accessment of and management of emergencys, administering PRN medications, and trying to deal with the paperwork back log that the more active shifts can't get to.