Articles by Azulinebloo

Obviously, I don’t mean on MN, I mean my first post as a Mental Nurse (Having paid my £76 to the NMC).

I will be working as a staff nurse on an acute inpatient ward later this month. I was reading a post about job adverts earlier and spotted this as my new job description:

Acute Inpatient

Our trust is currently recruiting for a Band 5 RMN who’s decided they don’t like talking to patients after all, and would rather just be an office monkey. Key skills include doing cool trick shots off the ward pool table, rolling a ciggie while simultaneously talking on the phone to the consultant, and the ability to say “I’ll be with you in a minute” without making it sound too much like a bare-faced lie. Our recent adoption of the Care Programme Approach will provide you with vast reams of paperwork to fill out, thus sparing you the horror of ever having to interact with filthy unwashed patients.

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Since I posted tips on being a student on placement, it was mentioned there should also be one on tips for university. This will largely be stolen from the comments on the placement one, editted and/or added to. Read the rest of this entry »

I saw this ad and thought of you….

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I wrote this post last week and attempted to edit it and make it better 2 days ago, but I lost all my hard work.

I apologise now if it’s not as good as it should be! (which it won’t!) These things always sound good in my head until I start to type them out.

Being at the end of my time as a student, I would like to impart my wisdom to other students and future students as well as share my observations. I first happened upon this site when I was in first year and I am aware there are other students who read this, although don’t always post comments, hoping for some more information and wisdom (haha, good luck with that one!). Read the rest of this entry »

Preliminary Draft of the DSM-V Committee on Cyber Disorders

The Cyber Disorders section includes disorders that have a dependency upon cyber existence as the predominant feature. The section is divided into three parts. The first part describes e-mail episodes that serve as the building blocks for the disorder diagnoses. The second part describes the Cyber Disorders themselves. The criteria sets for most of the Cyber Disorders require the presence or absence of the e-mail episodes described in the first part of the section. The third part includes the specifiers that describe either the most recent e-mail episode, or the course of recurrent episodes.

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This wouldn’t be Mental Nurse without a mention of this news story.

I have to say, I have only read the one article about it and not looked any deeper, but incase anyone missed it it’s here.

A NEW drug capable of halting Alzheimer’s disease in its tracks was hailed yesterday as a “hugely exciting” development in the battle against the devastating condition.

The drug, developed and tested on patients in Scotland, slows down the progression of Alzheimer’s by as much as 81 per cent.

With all these intellectual, political and argumentative posts recently,  I have been losing interest in joining in the discussion. I’m finding it a little less a discussion and more like a my dads better than yours situation. I am quite sure that I am not alone, therefore I want to write a post about plain old mental health nursing. (Not that there is anything plain about it). Read the rest of this entry »

I thought it was well past due that I write a post for Mental Nurse, what will all the intellectual discussions going on, it was about time for a pile of waffle from myself. *ahem*

As you may or may not be aware, I am in my final year as a student and will be a qualified Mental Nurse by the end of September.  I’m quite surprised at how the time seems to have gone quickly, although there have been plenty of times I wished it could have gone even faster. Particularly the due dates for course work, which always seemed to be such a long time away, with plenty of time to put off doing any work, and then it’s the last night and I’m up all night typing away, trying not to panic. (I don’t recommend this approach to current and future students)

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I saw this website linked from another blog, but I can’t remember what one, so I apologise for no acknowledgement.

I wanted to share it even further and decided to post the link here as well.

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb

Garfield is one of my favourite cartoon strips and I find this idea fascinating. It works so well, it’s often very moving.

Garfield Minus Garfield

This week I started on my first community placement. I am in a team that covers primary under 65’s, severe and enduring and over 65’s.

I will be spending time with 3 different CPN’s based in the same office. I will mainly be with the primary under 65 however.

Having gained almost all of my knowledge about CPN’s from this site (ha), I was expecting even better treatment that I have previously had in ward based placements, the truth, however, was not comparable.

In the entire week I have been there……prepare yourself, the following story is not nice.

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Ok, that was a slight exaggeration, adding a bit of sensationalism, but the above point may come true in the future.

The NMC are currently running a review of pre-registration nursing education.

Questions include:

should nurses be prepared to diploma or degree level?

what proportion of a pre-registration programme should be spent learning in practice?

should shared learning be a requirement?

should there be generalist and/or branch programmes, and if so, what should the branches be?

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I have been thinking about this for quite some time now, but I haven’t heard anyone else talk about it, or read anything worthwhile so decided to put my thoughts down here and you can tell me your opinion on it. I really don’t think I could be the first person to think like this! Read the rest of this entry »

The petition is currently sitting at 216 signatures, which means we will get a response from the appropriate government department!

Phase one is now complete. Yay!

However, more names are still welcome. Keep the support coming.

The deadline isn’t until 6 October, so still plenty of time to accumulate more names.

Incase you haven’t already signed, the petition is here

If you require more infomation, visit the FAQ

Mental Health Day began on 10 October 1992, it was started as an annual activity day with the general aim to promote awareness of Mental Health by the World Federation of Mental Health .  By 1994, the day was given a theme for the day.

According to the website, it has been hugely succesful over the last 14 years.

 Everything I have written has come from the WFMH.

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I thought it was only polite to properly introduce myself now I am listed as a contributor.

I am Bloo, a 2nd year Mental Health Student Nurse. I will start my final year in September ‘07. I have been visiting Mental Nurse for some time now, having not so recently changed my name. I fancied something different.

I often have trouble remaining (or even starting to be) serious, so expect some utter nonsense from me from time to time. I will hold back when posting here to try to keep up the excellent standard.

Now all we need is Mo to start posting regularly and this site will be fantastic instead of brilliant!

Oh, and you can see a photo of me here. Unfortunately I did not have on by Bloo uniform that day.