Only a nut would dare take psychiatric nursing lightly
Only a nut would dare take psychiatric nursing lightly
By The Manila Times Research Staff
Psychiatric nursing was one of the test subjects in which there was a leakage in the June 2006 board exams.
It was one of the subjects in which a questionable recomputation method was applied by the Board of Nursing. That recomputation, in the words of an official of the Council on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools—which gives the VisaSCreen certificate that allows a nurse to qualify for a job in all of the United States except California and Vermont—was “unusual.”
The recomputation (see “Did recomputation result in injustice?” on this page) resulted in leaving in doubt whether the passing examinees proved their competence in psychiatric nursing.
Psychiatric nursing is about promoting the optimum health of society in general achieved through health maintenance and prevention of mental illness in individuals. It is concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of human responses to potential or actual mental-health problems or psychosocial maladaptive behaviors.
The nurse can help prevent mental illness by assisting people in coping with anxiety and stress, teach patients stress management and problem-solving skills, console and give proper counsel to patients who are in grief, lighten the fears and console the dying, and enhance the self-esteem of patients suffering from low self-worth.
The nurse uses her psychiatric nursing skills by providing crisis intervention to afflicted people during accidents and natural disasters.
She has to be very skillful in dealing with people who, having faced unexpected situations, succumb to their overwhelming anxiety leading to maladaptive behavior. Among the types of maladaptive or dysfunctional behavior and response are substance abuse and substance-related disorders, pathologic depression, suicide attempts, extreme hyperactivity or elation, psychosis (inability to recognize reality), immobilization due to anxiety; and even eating, sleep and sexual disorders.
In this area of practice the nurse uses her knowledge of the dynamics of human behavior. She is called upon to make “purposeful use of the self.” Relationship between the nurse and the patient is established through therapeutic communication and interpersonal processes. Communication between two human beings can be difficult and challenging. The nurse can be guided by the human behavior the patient exhibits. She needs to be sensitive not only to the verbal messages of the patient but to the nonverbal expressions of his abstract thoughts and feelings. That means he or she must know how to read body language and hear the nuances of speech and voice inflections.
A nurse’s lack of skill will cause her to fail in correctly reading the patient’s situation, state of mind and inner turmoil and this failure could lead keep her from taking steps to correct the patient’s suicidal tendency or thwart a suicide attempt, or contain a patient’s aggressive impulses that may cause harm not only to the patient but also to others (maybe even the nurse herself or himself).
Conditions essential for this ideal nurse-patient relationship include at least empathy, respect, genuineness and trust. The nurse must also have the psychiatric-nursing clinical skills in making correct assessments, in planning and implementing the plan for the kind of care to be rendered to the patient as well as the skills to evaluating the care that has been given and the deficiencies in the giving of required care.
Science has made great strides in helping us understand how the brain works and how chemicals in the brain can affect one’s thinking, emotions and behavior. Where in the past the practice of psychiatric nursing was primarily focused on “the use of therapeutic or interactive interventions using communications, care and compassion to appease and calm the client,” the expanding knowledge base in this field has greatly influenced clinical practice.
The role of nurses in caring for patients with mental problems has also expanded to include her clinical skills in caring for clients receiving somatic therapies like the administration of medications that directly affect the brain and subsequently behavior, perceptions, thinking and emotions. Nurses are also required to be skilled in how electroconvulsive therapy should be applied—which can be extremely dangerous.
The nurse has to be knowledgeable not just in interactive interventions but also in the use of the medications to treat mental illness. She must know their “mechanism of action and side effects.” She must master her role.
Psychiatric nursing is not to be taken lightly, only a nut would dare take it lightly. The Board of Nursing, which decided to undervalue it in the June 2006 licensure examinations, either did not realize the consequences of what it was doing or simply did not care.
FROM: http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/sept/24/yehey/top_stories/20060924top5.html
By The Manila Times Research Staff
Psychiatric nursing was one of the test subjects in which there was a leakage in the June 2006 board exams.
It was one of the subjects in which a questionable recomputation method was applied by the Board of Nursing. That recomputation, in the words of an official of the Council on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools—which gives the VisaSCreen certificate that allows a nurse to qualify for a job in all of the United States except California and Vermont—was “unusual.”
The recomputation (see “Did recomputation result in injustice?” on this page) resulted in leaving in doubt whether the passing examinees proved their competence in psychiatric nursing.
Psychiatric nursing is about promoting the optimum health of society in general achieved through health maintenance and prevention of mental illness in individuals. It is concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of human responses to potential or actual mental-health problems or psychosocial maladaptive behaviors.
The nurse can help prevent mental illness by assisting people in coping with anxiety and stress, teach patients stress management and problem-solving skills, console and give proper counsel to patients who are in grief, lighten the fears and console the dying, and enhance the self-esteem of patients suffering from low self-worth.
The nurse uses her psychiatric nursing skills by providing crisis intervention to afflicted people during accidents and natural disasters.
She has to be very skillful in dealing with people who, having faced unexpected situations, succumb to their overwhelming anxiety leading to maladaptive behavior. Among the types of maladaptive or dysfunctional behavior and response are substance abuse and substance-related disorders, pathologic depression, suicide attempts, extreme hyperactivity or elation, psychosis (inability to recognize reality), immobilization due to anxiety; and even eating, sleep and sexual disorders.
In this area of practice the nurse uses her knowledge of the dynamics of human behavior. She is called upon to make “purposeful use of the self.” Relationship between the nurse and the patient is established through therapeutic communication and interpersonal processes. Communication between two human beings can be difficult and challenging. The nurse can be guided by the human behavior the patient exhibits. She needs to be sensitive not only to the verbal messages of the patient but to the nonverbal expressions of his abstract thoughts and feelings. That means he or she must know how to read body language and hear the nuances of speech and voice inflections.
A nurse’s lack of skill will cause her to fail in correctly reading the patient’s situation, state of mind and inner turmoil and this failure could lead keep her from taking steps to correct the patient’s suicidal tendency or thwart a suicide attempt, or contain a patient’s aggressive impulses that may cause harm not only to the patient but also to others (maybe even the nurse herself or himself).
Conditions essential for this ideal nurse-patient relationship include at least empathy, respect, genuineness and trust. The nurse must also have the psychiatric-nursing clinical skills in making correct assessments, in planning and implementing the plan for the kind of care to be rendered to the patient as well as the skills to evaluating the care that has been given and the deficiencies in the giving of required care.
Science has made great strides in helping us understand how the brain works and how chemicals in the brain can affect one’s thinking, emotions and behavior. Where in the past the practice of psychiatric nursing was primarily focused on “the use of therapeutic or interactive interventions using communications, care and compassion to appease and calm the client,” the expanding knowledge base in this field has greatly influenced clinical practice.
The role of nurses in caring for patients with mental problems has also expanded to include her clinical skills in caring for clients receiving somatic therapies like the administration of medications that directly affect the brain and subsequently behavior, perceptions, thinking and emotions. Nurses are also required to be skilled in how electroconvulsive therapy should be applied—which can be extremely dangerous.
The nurse has to be knowledgeable not just in interactive interventions but also in the use of the medications to treat mental illness. She must know their “mechanism of action and side effects.” She must master her role.
Psychiatric nursing is not to be taken lightly, only a nut would dare take it lightly. The Board of Nursing, which decided to undervalue it in the June 2006 licensure examinations, either did not realize the consequences of what it was doing or simply did not care.
FROM: http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/sept/24/yehey/top_stories/20060924top5.html
Believe ako sa Manila Times.
Ito lang yata ang diyaryo na ang ikinabubuhay o ang mission mula ng sumiklab ang nursing scandal ay magsulat tungkol sa scandal--na ang lahat ng hagupit nila laban sa PRC at BON ay patungkol naman sa June 2006 passers ang latay....
Kahit isa, wala silang article na nagbibigay ng side ng passers. Halimbawa, kung 11 ang nursing competencies at sa NCLEX exams ay masagot lang ng tama ang 60 graded questions out of the first 75 questions ay pasado na, ibig sabihin on the average ay halos 5 and 1/2 questions lang per nursing competency ang tanong--ANO, NUT BA SILA? ONLY NUTS WILL DARE GIVE ONLY 5 AND 1/2 QUESTIONS PER COMPETENCY, LALO NA SA PSYCHIATRIC NURSING, DI BA???
At mas marami pa dito ng di hamak ang natirang 80 questions ng Test 3 na gusto ring ipaulit ng mga gunggong--samantalang yung NCLEX ay board exam din, state board ng Tate mismo, at pag naipasa yan, wala ng kahit ano pang exam ang kailangang kunin hanggang sa tumanda at mag-retire ang nurses sa US. Eh bakit yung NCLEX hindi nila upakan at sabihin na hoy, kulang yang exam questions ninyo!
Paano na ang mga Pilipinong pasyente sa US hospitals, napaka-kaunti ng questions na pinasahan ng mga nurses na tumitingin sa kanila, at di ba mga incompetent ang mga nurses na yan na kulang na kulang ang questions ng pinasahang NCLEX board???
Pag nagawa ng mga complaining deans at nurses, ni Dante Ang, at ng Manila Times yan--ang upakan ang NCLEX--saka palang sila dapat paniwalaan--na nagdudunung-dunungan pa sila sa mga PUTI, he, he, he!!!
Posted by
Anonymous |
10:18 PM
RoBis, o Budek:
Puede ba, paki-paratingin ninyo sa Manila Times ang first comment dito para malaman naman ng Manila Times na masyado ng halata sila!
At saka, malaking katangahan yung ipinagpipilitan nila ang retake ng Test 3 with remaining 80 valid questions for just one subject, gayung much more ito than the first 60 graded questions for all subjects in NCLEX na pag nasagot ng sapat na tama ay declared passer na ang examinee!!! Hindi yata ito alam ng Manila Times--o they just keep quiet on facts na sisira sa kanilang mission at advocacy?!!!
Buti na lang, hindi ako bumibili ng Manila Times, at lalo akong hindi bibili nito!!!
Posted by
Anonymous |
10:32 PM
It only means that the nut who wrote this knows nothing of the June 2006 exam.
FYI Mr/Ms. nutcase writer, in almost every situations from the questionaire of the recent board exam had pychiatric questions from test I to IV, making it the most asked subject of the entire exam. It is best that you acquire a copy of the entire exam from the PRC to be evaluated so you could shut the hell up for things you have not an inkling at all.
Try mo yung exam, I'm sure, hindi ka papasa.. dahil kitang kita na wala kang "sentido common"!
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:21 PM
thank you mister writer.. you unlighten us.. ngayon naaapreciate ko na kung bakit ayaw kumuha ng mga pumasa
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:58 PM
hmmm...I wonder what nursing text books ang ginamit nitong Manila Times writer na ito. Did he or she learn anything from it? I doubt it.
Posted by
Anonymous |
3:52 AM
Ang problema kasi, hindi naman alam ng mga complaining deans and teachers na may questions din on psychiatric nursing sa Tests 1 to 4. Dahil sa nursing board, bawal i-publicize ang mga past exam questions. Ayaw nilang malaman ng mga susunod na examinees na ito ang dapat nilang malaman bilang future practicing professional nurses--dahil baka madagdagan ang alam nila at maging competent sila!!! Eh tama ba yan?
Sa ibang profession, at least in the one that I took, hindi bawal yan. Puede mong tingnan ang trend ng mga board-exam questions over the years. Walang masama diyan. For as long as it will give you added knowledge as a professisonal, hindi dapat ipagbawal yan.
Kaya tuloy ngayon, nguma-ngakngak yung nutcase writer, eh may psychiatric questions din naman pala sa ibang subjects--eh di palpak yung thesis niya. It is based on fiction, not fact.
Posted by
Anonymous |
8:35 AM
WHy comare the NLE with the NCLEX? (1)THey are different, the NCLEX ask good questions, the NLE asks stupid irrelevant ones. (2)simply shows your obsession to leave, which explains why you took nursing (misplaced reasons) (3) test 5 was strictly for psyh nursing, based on the testframework of the BON, don't bite everything PRC throws at you. Your explanation parrots the PRC's flawed reasoning.
Posted by
Anonymous |
9:13 AM
Ecactly, as you said, the NLE asks stupid and irrelevant questions, therefore even if the entire 100 questions in Test 5 are excluded, there will be no effect on the exam because the questions are not only studid but also IRRELEVANT, meaning no bearing on competence of examinees whether they answered it or not--GET IT ???
Posted by
Anonymous |
10:28 AM
Hay naku, korek kayo dyan!
Posted by
Anonymous |
12:12 PM