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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 »
What with Azulinebloo soon to be qualified and unleashed upon the world, the powers that be have very kindly asked me to join and be the resident mental student. How could I refuse?
So, a bit about me for anyone who doesn’t already know…
(Guest post by Tinkerbell)
I read a posting on the site about a person not sure about doing mental health nursing course due to their self-harming scars. To put your mind at rest (hopefully!) you wear your own clothes at work so can wear long-sleeved tops. In first year in England we have insights in to adult nursing which does mean you wear the nursing uniform but it is not for long (8 weeks) and just remember what the final goal is that you have been inspired to do this type of work. Also, the insight in to this issue will give you understanding and compassion of people who struggle with themselves with mental illness.
I also have some scars on my arms and I won’t say that it has not caused me at times distress and regret. However, I never ever thought in a million years I could train to be a mental health nurse as had a very chaotic life that involved an eating disorder and addiction. What helped me was that I wanted a normal life and had to try to not prevent my arms from living life to the full.
Read the rest of this entry »
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)
(Guest post by Vicarious)
My assignment is of a critical incident during my acure placement and i thought about increased obs; the problem is its due in 2 weeks on starting placement!! so in terms of leaving it to the last minute perplexes me some what, would there be any ideas of the roles etc of nurse and who is involved in the process from a “helocopter view” of services 
much apreciated and sorry for the annoying newbie to the site…looks really cool and i hope to be part of this forum for the distant future.
Looking for videos of youth subculture on YouTube, frankly alarming, and found this instead.
Previously, I’ve cautioned zarathustra against picking fights with Dr Crippen. Inter-blog squabbles are a singularly pointless waste of time in general, and trying to reason with Dr C is especially futile. But, I’d just like to pick up on a point the good doctor made: -
Ask yourself this. Why do young (and a few not so young) people go into nursing? Do they want to look after patients, or do they want to “interact with clients”? Do they want to read long discourses on the psychodynamics of inter-personal relationships, or do they want to care for patients who are ill? And by care, I mean hands-on care. Day to day patient contact. Nursing is a caring profession, a noble profession if that does not sound too mawkish, that was founded on the concept of caring for fellow human beings. Skills learned by apprenticeship. It’s all gone now.
Student nurses are dropping out of their courses at a great rate. In some places, the attrition rate is as high as 56%. So the inevitable question is - why?
Dr Crippen reckons he’s got the answer, in the form of an email from a “soon to be ex-student”, allegedly, complaining about the nature of her course. Apparently, there’s too much “theory” (don’t know what of), not enough information on sticking tubes and needles into people and - oh the horror - far too much emphasis on communicating with patients. Something like that. I glazed over, I have to admit, as we’ve all heard this sort of stuff time and time and time again.
A few weeks ago, I met up with a student - we’ll call her Mavis - for a tutorial prior to an exam. Nothing unusual in that, pretty standard university lecturer activity. Except Mavis was a third year, who should have qualified last September but was still resitting an exam she had already failed three times in her second year.
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.
A question from a student.
Hi! I’m a student mental health nurse and I was hoping somebody might be able to share some experiences with me. I’ve just found out that my second placement is going to be in psychiatric intensive care. I’m very excited about this but since my current placement is dementia care I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty different and I’m not too sure what to expect, so if anyone can tell me anything, really- what PICUs are like, what a patient has to do to get sent to one, what sort of stuff the staff do on them… that’d be really helpful. Thanks! And I like your site, by the way.
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?
Hello! Can you give me some advice where to start if I want a career in nursing? Point being that I do want to become a nurse, and have done for some time, but have no idea where to start.
I can’t decide if I want to work in traditional medicine or as a mental health nurse. Here’s my vital statistics:
- I am 22 years old
- I write this blog: http://thesecretlifeofmanicdepressive.wordpress.com
- I live in London
- I am currently unemployed and trying to claim Income Support
- I have bipolar 1 disorder and am taking medication. I’m under the care of the Community Mental Health team. Does this bar me from being a nurse?
- I have 7 GCSEs (I dropped out of college due to mental illness). They’re good GCSEs, all As and A*s.
Do they let skint, mentally ill, unemployed college drop outs become nurses? Can I claim benefits and receive funding? Do you know anywhere to study and how I would go about applying?
Thanks in advance for your help.
(Here’s a request from a reader - feel free to use the comments box to offer advice. Zarathustra)
I am new to all this so here goes!! I am a 3rd year Advanced Diploma in Nursing student and have just 5 months left till I qualify. I have been given a job interview on Monday for a staff nurse position on a forensic low secure men’s ward. I am extremely nervous as I do not know what sort of questions they might ask me, if anyone has any idea at all I would be eternally grateful!!
Many Thanks
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- Kittyxxx121 : that sounds too much like hard work. If you have to do the meds round, do they wash a couple of your patients for you?
- TheShrink : *nags Zarathustra for a roundup*
- Crazy_Nurse : AP's are the new version of EN's - paid as a band 4; do everything except meds. Bloody nightmare if theres a lot of them on one shift cos u av 2do all their drugs.
- spongebob5 : my daughter has one of these,don't think she finds him therapeutic though,i'll have to ask her
- TheShrink : What's therpeutic? "Dinosaur, Rrrrr!" I want one. «link»
- DeeDee Ramona : I have ended up finding an entire website about the Donner Party. Note, not the "doner party".
- DeeDee Ramona : ta muchly!
- zarathustra : I have unleashed your comment, DeeDee. No idea why it got stuck in moderation hell, but it's now free
- DeeDee Ramona : A comment of mine is awaiting moderation because it contains URLs. (It's a bunch of information on the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, which was mentioned on the anorexia thread). Z, can you free my comment from limbo please? ta
- TheShrink : Oh noes! Zarathustra, but that's a disaster! I've read Global, but I'm institutionalise d and crave TWIM every Saturday morning!
- catriona223 : anyone on line
- zarathustra : Shrink, I won't have time to do This Week in Mentalists until the evening. You may go to bed now. Or just read the Global Mentalists News Round Up instead.
- Kittyxxx121 : In reality EN's used to do the same jobs as junior staff nurses CD, there was no scope for promotion. Before AfC they still used to do meds rounds, ward rounds would even be left in charge of a ward if short staffed. however they only usedto get C grade, bloody disgusting i think. Thankfully that's all gone now.
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