Download or read book My Life in Mental Health A Nurse s Story written by John Nugent, RN and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My Life in Mental Health: A Nurse's Story relates - honestly and without pretense - the journey of a man who grew up in a family who struggled with mental health issues. John Nugent, the memoirist, tells how those early experiences led him to explore psychology to better understand both himself and his often-chaotic family. His hands-on work in mental health nursing provides the grounding for his narrative that explores the development of modern mental health care. In just a few decades mental health treatment transformed from a "doctor knows best" discipline and arrived where the best treatments tend to emerge from the expressed needs and desires of clients. My Life in Mental Health: A Nurse's Story will inform and inspire anyone who has felt the impact of mental illness in his or her family or who cares about people with mental illness. The author makes a compelling case for putting to rest the enduring stigma toward people who live with mental illness.
Download or read book A Nurse s Story written by Louise Curtis and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moving, honest and inspiring – this is a nurse’s true story of life in a busy A&E department during the Covid-19 crisis. Working in A&E is a challenging job but nurse Louise Curtis loves it. She was newly qualified as an advanced clinical practitioner, responsible for life or death decisions about the patients she saw, when the unthinkable happened and the country was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. The stress on the NHS was huge and for the first time in her life, the job was going to take a toll on Louise herself. In A Nurse’s Story she describes what happened next, as the trickle of Covid patients became a flood. And just as tragically, staff in A&E were faced with the effects of lockdown on society. They worried about their regulars, now missing, and saw an increase in domestic abuse victims and suicide attempts as loneliness hit people hard. By turns heartbreaking and heartwarming, this book shines a light on the compassion and dedication of hospital staff during such dark times. 'An important memoir that we all need to read right now.' – Closer
Download or read book I Wasn t Strong Like This When I Started Out True Stories of Becoming a Nurse written by Lee Gutkind and published by Underland Press. This book was released on 2013-02-25 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of true narratives reflects the dynamism and diversity of nurses, who provide the first vital line of patient care. Here, nurses remember their first "sticks," first births, and first deaths, and reflect on what gets them though long, demanding shifts, and keeps them in the profession. The stories reveal many voices from nurses at different stages of their careers: One nurse-in-training longs to be trusted with more "important" procedures, while another questions her ability to care for nursing home residents. An efficient young emergency room nurse finds his life and career irrevocably changed by a car accident. A nurse practitioner wonders whether she has violated professional boundaries in her care for a homeless man with AIDS, and a home care case manager is the sole attendee at a funeral for one of her patients. What connects these stories is the passion and strength of the writers, who struggle against burnout and bureaucracy to serve their patients with skill, empathy, and strength.
Download or read book BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR written by Gregg M. Schultz RN and published by . This book was released on 2023-02-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One man, not sure where his next job would come from, is employed by God where he will compassionately care for society's least fortunate--the mentally or emotionally ill, when they transition into the psychiatric hospital system. I am that man. This is my story of working in the psychiatric system, usually in a hospital setting. This volume is a telling of twenty-nine years of caring for and about people who, but for the grace of God, could be me or my family. It is a telling of surviving and thriving in often difficult circumstances. Starting as a mental health worker in 1988, I received my registered nurse license in 1993 and continued as a psychiatric nurse until I ended compensated employment in 2017. This is a telling of covering the naked and treating the self-inflicted wounds of the bloody. The whys and logics of many of the disorders encountered are addressed in caring and often wry commentary. The actual workings of the psychiatric hospital, and my observations of that environment are presented. Life as it is actually lived, often at its most visceral level, is on display here. I frequently make reference to a person's WIIFM (what's in it for me) as a dominant factor motivating the behavior of people, both the patients and the hospital staff. I do not spare myself when addressing WIIFM as a behavior motivator. There is caring for wounded hearts and how to manage those whose hearts are beyond either wounding or caring. The legalities, as well as the realities, of how the mental health system works and the protections for those who are a danger to themselves or others or unable to care for themselves are presented here, and I deal with the realities of psychiatric hospitalization and dispel the nonsense of a seventy-two-hour psychiatric hold. There is triumph and tragedy presented here in a uniquely engaging style by a true storyteller.
Download or read book The Language of Kindness written by Christie Watson and published by Doubleday Canada. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A moving, lyrical, beautifully written portrait of a nurse and the lives she has touched. Christie Watson spent twenty years working as a nurse, and in this intimate, poignant and remarkably powerful book, she opens the doors of the hospital and shares its secrets. She takes us by her side down hospital corridors to visit the wards and the patients who are unforgettable. In the neonatal unit, premature babies fight for their lives, hovering at the very edge of survival, like tiny Emmanuel wrapped up in a sandwich bag. In the cancer wards, the nurses administer chemotherapy and, long after the medicine stops working, something more important--which Watson recognizes when her own father is dying of cancer. In the mental health unit, Derek attempts to take his life. In the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Charlotte loses her legs following meningitis, and the nurses wash the hair of a little girl to remove the smell of smoke from a house fire. The emergency room is overcrowded as ever, with waves of alcohol and drug addicted patients, as well as patients like Betty, suffering chest pain, frail and alone. The stories of the geriatric ward--Gladys and older patients like her--show the plight of the most vulnerable members of our society. In the smallest of actions, the most undervalued of professions provides the most vital care and kindness. All of us will touch illness in our lifetime, and we will all depend upon the support and dignity that nurses offer us in our most vulnerable moments; yet these women and men who form the vanguard of our health service remain largely behind the scenes and publicly unsung. Through the stories in this book comes an understanding of what we must value most dearly--the urgency of care and compassion. In this age of fear, hate and division, Christie Watson, an award-winning novelist as well as a nurse, has written a book that reminds us of all that we share, and of what it is to be human.
Download or read book BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR written by Gregg M. Schultz RN and published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2023-03-30 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One man, not sure where his next job would come from, is employed by God where he will compassionately care for society's least fortunate--the mentally or emotionally ill, when they transition into the psychiatric hospital system. I am that man. This is my story of working in the psychiatric system, usually in a hospital setting. This volume is a telling of twenty-nine years of caring for and about people who, but for the grace of God, could be me or my family. It is a telling of surviving and thriving in often difficult circumstances. Starting as a mental health worker in 1988, I received my registered nurse license in 1993 and continued as a psychiatric nurse until I ended compensated employment in 2017. This is a telling of covering the naked and treating the self-inflicted wounds of the bloody. The whys and logics of many of the disorders encountered are addressed in caring and often wry commentary. The actual workings of the psychiatric hospital, and my observations of that environment are presented. Life as it is actually lived, often at its most visceral level, is on display here. I frequently make reference to a person's WIIFM (what's in it for me) as a dominant factor motivating the behavior of people, both the patients and the hospital staff. I do not spare myself when addressing WIIFM as a behavior motivator. There is caring for wounded hearts and how to manage those whose hearts are beyond either wounding or caring. The legalities, as well as the realities, of how the mental health system works and the protections for those who are a danger to themselves or others or unable to care for themselves are presented here, and I deal with the realities of psychiatric hospitalization and dispel the nonsense of a seventy-two-hour psychiatric hold. There is triumph and tragedy presented here in a uniquely engaging style by a true storyteller.
Download or read book The Language of Kindness written by Christie Watson and published by Crown. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A moving, lyrical, beautifully-written portrait of a nurse and the lives she has touched Christie Watson spent twenty years as a nurse, and in this intimate, poignant, and remarkably powerful book, she opens the doors of the hospital and shares its secrets. She takes us by her side down hospital corridors to visit the wards and meet her unforgettable patients. In the neonatal unit, premature babies fight for their lives, hovering at the very edge of survival, like tiny Emmanuel, wrapped up in a sandwich bag. On the cancer wards, the nurses administer chemotherapy and, long after the medicine stops working, something more important--which Watson learns to recognize when her own father is dying of cancer. In the pediatric intensive care unit, the nurses wash the hair of a little girl to remove the smell of smoke from the house fire. The emergency room is overcrowded as ever, with waves of alcohol and drug addicted patients as well as patients like Betty, a widow suffering chest pain, frail and alone. And the stories of the geriatric ward--Gladys and older patients like her--show the plight of the most vulnerable members of our society. Through the smallest of actions, nurses provide vital care and kindness. All of us will experience illness in our lifetime, and we will all depend on the support and dignity that nurses offer us; yet the women and men who form the vanguard of our health care remain unsung. In this age of fear, hate, and division, Christie Watson has written a book that reminds us of all that we share, and of the urgency of compassion.
Download or read book Mental Health in Nursing written by Kim Foster and published by Elsevier Health Sciences. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Restructured and presented in 3 parts: Section 1: Positioning Practice describes the context and importance of nursing in mental health and includes a new chapter on self-care Section 2: Knowledge for Practice addresses the specialist practice of mental health nursing. Each chapter examines specific mental health conditions, assessment, nursing management and relevant treatment approaches Section 3: Contexts of practice features scenario-based chapters with a framework to support mental health screening, assessment, referral and support, across a range of clinical settings
Download or read book Depression a Nurse s Experience written by Veronica Burton and published by Radcliffe Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Veronica Burton's first experience of depression came as a teenager. Following a ten year remission, during which she gained her general nursing qualification and completed her Special and Intensive Nursing of the Newborn course, work-related events precipitated a depressive relapse that has lasted to the present day. Since her retirement on medical grounds, she has campaigned against prejudice by nurses toward other nurses - including mental health nurses - who need psychological support of any kind. This book recounts the author's experiences of major depression, hospital admissions and treatments including medication, ECT and 'talking treatments'. It discusses the care given by medical and nursing staff and social and medical prejudices against those with psychiatric illnesses from a medical practitioner's perspective. Like stumbling on a secret room in a familiar building. In illuminating these previously inaccessible corners of her illness experience, she forces me to challenge my own taken-for-granted version of her history. Familiar territory seen from another perspective suddenly seems perturbing. As psychiatrists, too often we are drawn into seeing people through a lens of illness, as if this was their only identity.A Veronica Burton's Psychiatrist Nick Rose in his Postscript
Download or read book Tending Lives written by Echo Heron and published by Ivy Books. This book was released on 1999-01-30 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical-care nurse in coronary and emergency medicine for eighteen years, Echo Heron has seen and heard it all. Here she recounts narratives of real-life medical dramas experienced by nurses across the country, sharing with us the inspiring, the tragic, and the outrageously funny: a penitentiary nurse who wasresponsible for orchestrating a murderer's execution; a stroke victim who rose out of his depression when his nurses began telling him jokes; and, perhaps the most riveting testimony, moment-by-moment memories of several nurses who served in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. Filled with both tears and laughter and charged with the issues that afflict nursing care today, TENDING LIVES is a gripping, moving, inspiring book, a fitting tribute to a noble profession.
Download or read book The Mad and the Bad written by George Birks and published by Author House. This book was released on 2014 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As to the staff, both nurses and doctors were treating patients with a mixture of prejudice, ill-understood physical interventions such as shock therapy (in all its forms), and sedation. We all conducted our care within the provisions of the Mental Health Acts of 1959 and 1983, but the older nurses and doctors had been trained postwar. Doctors generally expected, and got, deference from patients. They got it from nurses too, though nurses could be a two-faced lot. Maybe it was the older nurses' enduring influence that made psychiatric nurses enforce compliance from their patients. But from the 1960s, protest against the big forbidding madhouses became more frequent and vociferous. By the 1980s, there was a storm of coruscating reports and bitterly convincing accounts of mistreatment. So a new NHS mental health care policy was developed: Care in the Community. The old institutions would close down, and their inhabitants would be parented, so to speak, by the social security system and visits from community-based psychiatric nurses. This was not only cheaper (it got rid of those old asylums), but it also reflected liberal views of mental disorder as something that, with love and responsibility, could be lessened, while the mentally disadvantaged would have a better quality of life. Care in the Community got rid of some of the staff too, but many carried their old behavior into new jobs. This book relates my experiences between 1969 and 1989. I would like to think that psychiatric care is better now, but I don't. I think it's just different.
Download or read book A Place for Lost Souls written by Belinda Black and published by . This book was released on 2024-03-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Ultimately, my experiences as a mental health nurse have taught me that we should judge less and open our hearts more.' Belinda Black was just seventeen years old when she began working as a nursing assistant at the large and foreboding 'madhouse', as it was then known to the villagers of her hometown in the north of England. Following in the footsteps of her mother, she went on to spend a decade caring for patients with widely varying mental health problems, all locked up together and out of view of society. Some had suffered unimaginable trauma, several had violent and volatile tendencies, but amongst this Belinda found moments of joy and even friendship with her patients. But A Place for Lost Souls is also about the other psychiatric nurses there, from those like Sister Kane who suffered from depression and found treating others a welcome distraction, to others like Belinda's friend Sally, who always had a sense of humour however dark the situation. Together, against a backdrop of rattling keys, clanging iron doors, and wards that smelled of disinfectant and stale smoke, these people came together to get through another day. Until the hospital, along with many others, had its doors closed in 1991 - the biggest change to mental healthcare in NHS history. The result is a moving, shocking but ultimately life-affirming account of a unique and noble profession, told from the frontlines. Amongst so much sadness and distress, and despite witnessing some of the darkest corners of human suffering, Belinda finds hope: in the camaraderie of her colleagues, in the patients she cares for, and in her unwavering belief that even people who have committed violent crimes are fundamentally good.
Download or read book SURVIVING MENTAL ILLNESS written by Linda Naomi Katz and published by Outskirts Press. This book was released on 2012-03-30 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written from the perspective of someone whose life has been challenged by mental illness, this book offers help, hope, and inspiration to others struggling with psychological disorders. It provides information about mental illness in general—and mood disorders in particular—valuable tips about treatment and medication, and resources and organizations dedicated to helping those suffering from these disorders. Surviving Mental Illness helps break through the fear and stigma of mental illness and focuses on how to find health and happiness. The author shares her personal journey: the heartbreak and challenges of bipolar disorder, and the joy of making her way back to mental health. Through her own story, she shows that help is out there, and with a little faith, recovery is possible. My faith in G-d has led me to recover in ways you cannot imagine. Life is having faith to overcome any obstacles, and that is what my recovery from mental illness is all about.
Download or read book Memoirs of a Black NHS Mental Health Nurse written by Carol Webley-Brown and published by . This book was released on 2023-02-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In comparison to midwifery, pediatrics, and general nursing, the work of mental health nurses is often unrecognized and seen by many as the poor relative of nursing. In Memoirs of a Black NHS Mental Health Nurse, Queen's Nurse and author, Carol Webley-Brown raises the profile of black mental health nurses. In this memoir, Webley-Brown tells how she joined the National Health Service as a student nurse more than forty years ago in 1976, undertaking her psychiatric training first. Memoirs of a Black NHS Mental Health Nurse shares an overview of her life that also includes work in accident and emergency nursing, marrying, having children, teaching in universities, being a general practice nurse, caring for her terminally ill-husband, volunteering in Ghana for more than four years, and a return to mental health nursing. Through her story, Webley-Brown seeks to break down the walls of racism and raise the profile of Black nurses. She starts the difficult conversation and slowly intends to dismantle institutional, structural, and systemic racism.
Download or read book Self Care for New and Student Nurses Second Edition written by Dorrie K. Fontaine and published by Sigma Theta Tau. This book was released on 2024-08-20 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The authors have created a brilliant, reader-centric, practical, powerful, and evidence-based guide designed for new and student nurses, yet effective for preceptors and faculty alike. Imagine a resource so engaging and effective you turn to it time and time again to inform and support your whole-person well-being.” –Teri Pipe, PhD, RN Richard E. Sinaiko Professor in Health Care Leadership School of Nursing Core Faculty, Center for Healthy Minds Distinguished Fellow, National Academies of Practice University of Wisconsin-Madison “This extraordinary book will be the voice in the ear of every young nurse who reads it throughout their career, sustaining them through the hard times and providing what it takes to be the skillful, compassionate nurses they dreamed of being.” –Bonnie Barnes, FAAN Doctor of Humane Letters (h.c) Co-founder, The DAISY Foundation “This is an astonishingly rich and relevant text that truly should be required in every nursing program. If widely adopted, this text has the potential to transform the profession.” –Mary Jo Kreitzer, PhD, RN, FAAN Director, Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing Professor, University of Minnesota School of Nursing As a nursing student, you’re taught to expect a variety of challenges while caring for your patients and juggling competing priorities as you begin your career. And, though you may know better, your personal well-being can become the last thing you consider in your hectic student or new-nurse life. This second edition of Self-Care for New and Student Nurses equips you to confidently face stressors now and in the future. No matter where you are in your nursing career, this book offers you multiple strategies to prioritize your own mental, physical, and emotional health. Authors Dorrie K. Fontaine, Tim Cunningham, and Natalie May showcase a group of strong contributors whose valuable tips and exercises will help you: · Find joy and a sense of mattering at work · Manage anxiety, loneliness, and depression · Address imposter syndrome, practice self-compassion, and thrive during clinicals · Cope and seek help with racial tensions, substance abuse, suicide risks, and other traumas · Spot the stressors that lead to burnout · Prioritize sleep, exercise, and nutrition · Build a toolkit of self-care techniques, including in-the-moment practices for an ideal workday · Develop a resilient mindset · Establish boundaries TABLE OF CONTENTS Section 1: Fundamentals Chapter 1: The Fundamentals of Stress, Burnout, and Self-Care Chapter 2: The Fundamentals of Resilience, Growth, and Wisdom Chapter 3: Developing a Resilient Mindset Using Appreciative Practices Section II: The Mind of a Nurse Chapter 4: Self-Care, Communal Care, and Resilience Among Underrepresented Minoritized Nursing Professionals and Students Chapter 5: Self-Care for LGBTQIA+ Nursing Students Chapter 6: Racial Trauma and Healing Chapter 7: Narrative Practices Chapter 8: Self-Care and Systemic Change: What You Need to Know Chapter 9: Strengths-Based Self-Care: Good Enough, Strong Enough, Wise Enough Section III: The Body and Spirit of a Nurse Chapter 10: Reclaiming, Recalling, and Remembering: Spirituality and Self-Care Chapter 11: Sleep, Exercise, and Nutrition: Self-Care the Kaizen Way Chapter 12: Reflections on Self-Care and Your Clinical Practice Section IV: The Transition to Nursing Practice Chapter 13: Supportive Professional Relationships: Nurse Residency Programs, Preceptors, and Mentors Chapter 14: Healthy Work Environment: How to Choose One for Your First Job Chapter 15: Self-Care for Humanitarian Aid Workers Section V: The Heart of a Nurse Chapter 16: Mattering: Creating a Rich Work Life Chapter 17: Integrating a Life That Works With a Life That Counts Chapter 18: Providing Compassionate Care and Addressing Unmet Social Needs Can Reduce Your Burnout Chapter 19: Showing Up With Grit and Grace: How to Lead Under Pressure as a Nurse Clinician and Leader Chapter 20: Coaching Yourself When Things Are Hard
Download or read book Confessions of a Trauma Junkie written by Sherry Lynn Jones and published by Modern History Press. This book was released on 2017-04-03 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Place for Lost Souls written by Belinda Black and published by . This book was released on 2023-06-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Ultimately, my experiences as a mental health nurse have taught me that we should judge less and open our hearts more.' Belinda Black was just seventeen years old when she began working as a nursing assistant at the large and foreboding 'madhouse', as it was then known to the villagers of her hometown in the north of England. Following in the footsteps of her mother, she went on to spend a decade caring for patients with widely varying mental health problems, all locked up together and out of view of society. Some had suffered unimaginable trauma, several had violent and volatile tendencies, but amongst this Belinda found moments of joy and even friendship with her patients. But A Place for Lost Souls is also about the other psychiatric nurses there, from those like Sister Kane who suffered from depression and found treating others a welcome distraction, to others like Belinda's friend Sally, who always had a sense of humour however dark the situation. Together, against a backdrop of rattling keys, clanging iron doors, and wards that smelled of disinfectant and stale smoke, these people came together to get through another day. Until the hospital, along with many others, had its doors closed in 1991 - the biggest change to mental healthcare in NHS history. The result is a moving, shocking but ultimately life-affirming account of a unique and noble profession, told from the frontlines. Amongst so much sadness and distress, and despite witnessing some of the darkest corners of human suffering, Belinda finds hope: in the camaraderie of her colleagues, in the patients she cares for, and in her unwavering belief that even people who have committed violent crimes are fundamentally good.
