Congratulations to Nicole who graduated from the Psychiatric Nursing Program! We thank her for her hard work on the blog and wish her the best of luck in her new career. Questions and comments will now be disabled. Please watch out for a new Psychiatric Nursing Student Blogger in the near future!
Hello Everyone,
It is hard to believe we are already into 2014… this is the graduating year for my class – the 1012 cohort! This past year has brought us so much knowledge and many interesting clinical experiences. From my acute psych experience at Kelowna General Hospital over the summer of 2013, I slowly began to feel like a nurse; giving medication, injections, performing assessments, and charting all made this journey slowly come together. In the fall, our med/surg clinical took place, which was certainly an eye-opener! From removing staples, to wound care, to spinal/neurological and 24 hour assessments, we tried out the roles of LPNs and RNs. While it was so interesting and a great experience altogether, I went home every day rekindling my passion for psych! It’s so great that we learn everything registered and licensed practical nurses learn… but we get that extra special bit of psych which is so fascinating!
Semester 5 is beginning as we welcome 2014 – we are on the home stretch, and the end is in our sights! These next few months are bound to fly by… and as graduation approaches, so do our registration exams! Time to really start preparing ourselves- review, review, review!
What I am most looking forward to this year is, of course, graduation! Everything has already gone by so fast, and we have less than one year left of school! I also found out recently that my next practicum placement, beginning in late January, will be on the acute psych ward of Penticton Regional Hospital. This is very exciting for me as it’s so close to home and I can really begin to feel like I’m giving back to my community.
Something people have been asking me lately is “where will you work once you are done school?”. This is another door 2014 will open for us future RPNs… where will we work?! Having given this a lot of thought recently, I know I won’t be picky once I’m first out in the field. Jobs are hard to come by, especially in the interior, so I will take what I can get to begin this very exciting career!
Once school is over, our lives will take some new and exciting turns. Though school is challenging and time-consuming, it is always worth it! To those of you considering this program, I hope you can sense my excitement and passion; the reward at the end, a fantastic career, opens up so many possibilities.
Happy New Year!
