Hi all, interviewing for a position on an inpatient adolescent psych unit. I haven’t gotten specifics yet as to what the type of unit is/acuity, and this would be my first job in psych. (I have 9months in med surg so far.)

I am wondering what kind of questions I should ask, so that I can better understand this role. I am also wondering what safety considerations I need to be aware of to ensure I’ll be on a safe, quality unit.

Basically, what questions should I ask to make sure this place isn’t a bad place to work, or a bad place for patients to heal.

Thank you all!

Hi everyone! I'm a BHT. I graduate from nursing school in a few months with my BSN, and then will be a psych nurse at the same facility I currently work at. I recently came across a situation that's new to me. I work on a high-acuity adolescent unit, and one of our patients was supposed to discharge the day before her birthday. Well, she wound up having a panic attack right before discharge, and said some concerning things, and thus her stay was extended. She was understanding, but upset that she would have to spend her birthday in the psych hospital. Due to this, I wanted to make her day extra special. She doesn't have the best relationship with her parents, and they hadn't confirmed whether or not they would be visiting to celebrate. I went out to the dollar store and bought some decorations for the nurse's station (I asked her doctor if we could possibly decorate her door and got a no due to safety concerns, so nurse's station it was), and also coordinated for her to get a slice of cake from the cafeteria. As I was hanging the decorations at the nurse's station, the charge nurse got onto me and said celebrating birthdays was crossing a boundary, so not to do it in the future. I could see if I was buying gifts for the patient on some random day, and paying them extra attention for no good reason, but in my mind everyone deserves to be celebrated on their birthday, especially kids. The patient really loved seeing the decorations when she came up to get her medicine, and said it made her day a lot better. What's you guy's thoughts on this? Do you celebrate birthdays at your facility, or is that crossing a boundary?

I've been doing inpatient psych since 2015, started traveling in 2017 and been doing it ever since. I don't know what changed or why but since about 2022 I just feel done with this line of work. I'm lucky, travel pays pretty well and I've managed to save enough to take multiple months long breaks but still, every time I go back I feel instantly drained again. I lived the time off but I didn't return with any renewed enthusiasm for the work.

I'm exhausted and I think I wanna get away from this field, or certainly the direct care part of it, but I don't even know where to start.

Just felt the need to vent. Anyone else experiencing this or gone through something similar?