start psych semester tomorrow

LaceyRN · May 20, 2007

is this intro to psych or an advanced course?

nightshifter415 · May 22, 2007

I remember my classmates and I were practically "thrown" into the Psych clinical portion without having more than 2 theory classes to prepare us for what we were going to see.

To be honest, it was quite literally crazy. The hospital where I did my rotation at served the greater population of San Francisco (not to stereotype my hometown, but there were a lot of homeless clients and drug abusers who filtered in and out of the system for a long time) so there were a lot of bizzare incidences that I was able to observe. We were constantly reminded to keep an arms distance away from patients (especially the violent ones). There was a lock down jail on the unit for inmates with psychiatric issues that were offenders that couldn't be placed with the rest of the SF county jail population in the downtown jail. Pretty heavy stuff. This is the semester where you will get a lot of practice with therapeutic communication. A lot of my rotation consisted of sitting one on one with someone and asking them questions about why they wanted to kill themselves, or if they were hearing voices as I was talking to them. And then I learned that there were no taboos with these patients because a lot of them expected to talk about why they were there. Just be safe and in any instance where your gut tells you that something isn't right, start walking the opposite way. Hopefully you are at a facility that has a diverse array of cultures and situations, it will be a truly eye opening semester. Have fun and good luck!

Bonny619 · May 22, 2007

You do a full semester of psych?