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!
Hi Everyone!
We are back to a busy schedule after an enjoyable break from school. Semester 3 has just started up, and it’s very exciting because we have begun our Acute Psychiatry clinical rotation! Just like last semester, clinical does not stop the homework from coming our way! We have five full-time courses: Women’s Studies, Psychology, Philosophy, Acute Psychiatry Nursing Theory, and Ethics & Law. It is quite an eclectic mix of courses and definitely keeps me on my toes!
Psychiatry Nursing Courses
My favourite course so far is Acute Psychiatry Nursing Theory, because it gives a lot of insight as to what we might experience during clinical and how to approach different situations within our scope of practice as Psychiatric Nurses.
Women’s Studies has been an intense course for me, as I have never taken anything like it before. It is interesting to learn about some of the stereotyping women suffer and how it is important to support the cause of women’s success in both their personal and professional lives.
I have taken introductory Psychology before, and am once again enjoying the course. We have been learning about the biology of the mind, which is always an interesting topic to study.
As for Philosophy, this course gets your head spinning! We go way back when to Aristotle, and try to ask “why” and “how” as many times as he did! There aren’t a lot of wrong answers in Philosophy, but how you get to your answer is the part that takes brains! It’s a bit of a challenge which I love. Ethics & Law is an important course, exploring the legalities behind nursing and how ethical decisions are always apparent in this career.
Acute Care Psychiatry
As for clinical, I have been placed with three wonderful students (and friends!) on McNair Unit, which is Kelowna General Hospital’s psychiatric ward. McNair is located in the beautiful new Centennial building of KGH, which is one of their more recent development projects in reconstructing the hospital.
The first day we were all a bit nervous, not entirely sure what to expect of Acute Care Psychiatry. It is a locked unit, so being let through those doors to begin our experience was quite something! We toured the hospital and became familiar with McNair and the nursing staff, who were all happy to have us on board. Taking in everything was intense, so our first day didn’t consist of much patient interaction.
The second day, we began our morning doing rounds with the nurses. I was paired with the Charge Nurse of the day, which was very exciting for me as I got to see some of the extra responsibilities entailed in the job. We performed vitals and medication administration, and got to spend a bit of time with the patients, which was great. I am looking forward to the coming weeks, where I can have some more time to talk with the patients.
All-in-all, a great semester so far! I hope my excitement is tangible to everyone out there who is thinking about Psychiatric Nursing – It’s truly a fantastic program!
