What do you think are some of the best places to work in psych?

allnurses Guide · Apr 21, 2019

5 hours ago, Naturally Brilliant said:
Any specific hospitals or clinics you think is great in terms of pay, clinical knowledge development, institutional prestige, or patient reviews?

I work in a private acute psych and I love it. The pay is a little better than average as I gross around $86,000.00 with an ADN. There's always plenty of chances to increase clinical knowledge. We're small and serve the mental health needs of a smaller bedroom suburb of Los Angeles. I would not say we are prestigious however. In my experience Psych patients rarely give positive reviews of their care.

Hppy

zephyr9 · May 10, 2019

Extended acute. I work in a 24 bed extended acute psych unit, extended meaning the patients stay for months, sometimes even years. Often times their illness is such that they're never going to get any better than a certain point, they are 99% people with severe psychosis. The the long length of stay is due to the wait for beds in appropriate residential settings for them, since they're not able to care for themselves independently.

What's great about this job is that I get to know them very well, get to see them over time through their full range of presentations, get to build trust with (most of) them. They get care more tailored to their needs here, and great care is taken to find appropriate permanent placements for them before discharge. There are only three extended acute units in my entire ( huge) US city, so our patients often have waited for months on regular acute psych floors for a bed here.

Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN · May 22, 2019

As far as the best specific specialties within psych go, that depends on the individual person. What's best to one may be a nightmare to another.

As far as facilities, I would advise against working for for-profit facilities, or if you choose to do so, proceed with caution. Not that all for-profit facilities are horrible, but based on my own experiences working in them, the emphasis seems to be on maximizing profits, so they'll cut corners where they can...and staffing is frequently one of those corners that they like to cut. And if you're not in CA where you have the protection of state-mandated ratios...

PsychMD · May 26, 2019

Large academic teaching hospitals likely will best fit what you're looking for. They usually have really good benefits, the prestige is there, and it's the safest bet for finding competent physicians to work with. Doctor quality varies greatly. It's usually a little harder for the bad ones to sneak their way into academics.

MasalaC, BSN, RN · Jun 9, 2019

I work in acute care in a large academic hospital. The pay isn't the greatest.... but I am truly enjoying where I work so far. The stay here for patients is short-term, to stabilize them to either be d/c to a longer term of care or home. Longer stay here usually (but not always) equates to a dispo issues.

2BS Nurse, BSN · Jun 24, 2019

Do you all feel safe working in psych nursing? That's the one thing that keeps me from trying it. Are your units staffed with any type of security response if needed?

KJoRN81, RN · Jun 27, 2019

On 5/26/2019 at 1:58 AM, PsychMD said:
Large academic teaching hospitals likely will best fit what you're looking for. They usually have really good benefits, the prestige is there, and it's the safest bet for finding competent physicians to work with. Doctor quality varies greatly. It's usually a little harder for the bad ones to sneak their way into academics.

Agreed! I work inpatient med-psych at a large teaching hospital & we have great staff.

allnurses Guide · Jun 27, 2019

On 6/24/2019 at 5:42 AM, 2BS Nurse said:
Do you all feel safe working in psych nursing? That's the one thing that keeps me from trying it. Are your units staffed with any type of security response if needed?

Yes I have almost always felt safe - Even though I work for a for profit hospital owned by an "Evil" corporation. We are pretty well staffed most of the time with people trained in interventional tactics.

We don't have security guards on the unit's. In my experience Uniforms can trigger negative behavior.

Hppy

KJoRN81, RN · Jun 27, 2019

On 6/24/2019 at 7:42 AM, 2BS Nurse said:
Do you all feel safe working in psych nursing? That's the one thing that keeps me from trying it. Are your units staffed with any type of security response if needed?

Yes 100%. We all have duress buttons, all patient rooms / hallways have video cameras (& we have staff that specifically monitor the feed at all times), we have a large code team, & all have been trained specifically for dealing with situations that may or may not escalate.