Personal Narrative: My First Placement As A Mental Health Student Nurse

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My First placement as a mental health student nurse was at a unit where the patients/service users are not ill enough to be in hospital but are not able to look after themselves in their own homes or their family find it too difficult to look after them. On the drive to my placement I had a lot of mixed emotions in one way I was excited as this was a new chapter in my life but in another way I was really nervous, will I fit in, will I get on with the staff as I had heard so many stories of staff do not like student nurses and can be quite nasty towards them and will I be able to deal with the patients in a professional way?, in fact when I parked my car in the car park I just sat there for about five minutes I was frozen to the spot I felt…show more content…
As she said some students they have had in the past just hang around waiting to be told what to do whereas if I saw someone doing something I offered to help. There I quite a few things I need to be doing when I go back on placement like being more confident around the patients/service users as I think that any signs of nerves they will pick up on this and take advantage. My mentor also advised that it would be a good idea if I became familiar with some of the drugs that they use on a regular basis and gave me a sheet outlining the common drugs used in mental health nursing and she also gave me a copy of the British National Formulary (BNF) and said that if I was ever unsure about a drug I was administering I should always look in the BNF. I also need to remember to always minimize personal risk by always staying at least an arms length away from a patient and to give them lots of space and never to get stuck in a corner and if anyone does start to show any form of aggression I need to be firmer and explain that that behaviour whether verbal or otherwise is totally

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