Wednesday 23 January 2013

My first few months as a newly qualified nurse!

Hi! This is just a quick update of what I have been up to with my career:


I finished University and became a registered mental health nurse in October 2012 and stated working on an acute assessment unit in Hull, which means we have patients brought in by the police and our Crisis team, who may be drunk, under the influence of drugs, and suffering from psychosis or any other acute mental illness. Many may feel suicidal and it can be a worry having them on the unit, as they are considered quite risky.

It has been ever so interesting and I love spending time with my patients, talking to them and trying to work out with them a pattern of trigger events in their lives, or to identify ways in which they can go back to living at home with their families.

We often get patients who are detained under the Mental Health Act or "sectioned" and this can be a real challenge, as they often want to leave and I have to tell them why they can't.

The most challenging thing I have been faced with was being told by my manager that I had to organise a restraint on one of our male patients who had a lighter on him which we needed to remove (he had history of arson) and we needed to medicate him with an injection that he had been refusing. As he was under a section we had to force the medication upon him. I was shaking so much as I chose the members of staff to restrain the male patient, then I had to place myself on the "legs" to make sure he did not kick the person injecting him! In the end, we did not need to restrain as he decided to hand over the lighter and accept the medication without being restrained, but just the thought of restraining a large adult made me tremble! I will have to get used to these experiences as on our unit we have aggressive patients, and I do feel a bit more prepared for next time!

Anyway, I am going to Barcelona this weekend and I need to go and pack!

I will try and post more often, as what is the point of me having a blog that I don't use!

Later xxxxx

1 comment:

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