Peer-Review: Psychiatric Mental Health Disorder Poster
Student Name: Swezna Thapa
Poster presentations [student name(s)/identified mental illness]:
Infographic Title: Bulimia Nervosa
Author of Infographic: Britt
Met requirement to explain (check if satisfactorily met/leave unchecked if not clear):
☑ Symptoms
☑ Nursing Interventions
☑ Medication
☑ Medical Side Effects
Most important point/what was done well, or what you learned:
Britt did a great job elaborating on alcohol use disorder and included all the requirements needed
in the infographic as well. I think the layout of the infograph also helps for an easier read to our
patients. In general, everything is concise but straightforward so that patients are able to read and
have a better idea of what the disorder is without getting confused on the big medical
terminology. I learned that the layout of a infograph can truly make a difference when it comes
to patient teaching. I think that things need to flow and Britt did a great job showing that.
What could be improved upon?
The only thing I would add would be the medical side effects as an actual label. I did read the
medication side effects within the column but I think it would be good to bold “side effect” and
list out the side effects. Other than that, I think the infograph has just enough photos and
information to make it appeasing and also easy to read to our target audience.
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Reflection paper
As I reflect back to the start of the semester, I recognize how ignorant and unaware I truly
was about the world of psychiatry and psychiatric nursing. In the beginning, I never truly
understand the nurse’s role, despite learning the nursing process back in level one. It was hard
for me to envision the day-to-day lifestyle of a nurse. Once we started, medical-surgical rotations
at Banner Estrella, I was able to have a better understanding of how intensive a nurse’s role truly
is. After ending the rotations for medical-surgical, I expected psychiatry nursing to be fairly
similar. This quickly changed once we started our psychiatric rotations at Banner Del Webb
towards the end of our semester.
Throughout the entire semester, I found it so difficult to be able to relate my knowledge
of the various disorders, diseases and the nursing process to the real-life indications. During our
psychiatric rotations, I was completely shocked at how well our readings, PowerPoints and
medications correlated so well to what we saw in clinical. I think during my time in nursing
school, I keep assuming that the information we learn won’t be appearing as frequent or appear
at all. I think this comes from my experience from the disconnect I felt with my pervious degree.
It truly made me appreciate nursing even more, knowing that what I am learning in class is so
crucial to what we are going to be experiencing in real life. This is especially for psychiatric
nursing.
From our rotations in Banner Del Webb, I learned how important it is to have a “matterof fact” attitude with our patients especially when it comes to asking them very personal
questions such as suicide. I also learned that as a psychiatric nurse, we have to make sure we
keep our boundaries with our patients. This was taught to us in our previous topics about always
protecting ourselves if a patient ever gets or starts to get physically aggressive. Before this
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rotation, I always thought our number one priority would be our patient no matter the
circumstance. However, if we do not protect ourselves, we will not be able to take care of our
other patients. This is when it became relevant to me on how important it is to not only set
boundaries with our patients but to also take care of our wellbeing. The nurses I met during this
rotation, explained to me how important it is for them to go home and decompress. They explain
to me that without doing so, they would face the adversity of burn out and ultimately not be a
good nurse.
In my experience during our rotation, I was also able to see the interactions between
nurses, doctors, CNAs, case managers and other health care providers. On my last day of
clinical, I had the opportunity to join my nurse, the doctor and the care manager for their rounds.
It was so interesting to see their collaboration on the different patients and how each of their
roles truly play such an intricate part of a patient’s experience in the hospital. The nurse was able
to provide the doctor with the data she collected about each patient she had and the various
interactions she had with her patients. The doctor would contribute to the conversation by also
expressing the similarities of their data or differences. There were several times were the patient
interacted differently with the nurse than the doctor. Sometimes, the nurse and doctor had
different information collected of the mental health assessments made by the same patient in the
same day. With this interaction, they are able to better assess the difference in interactions and
then from there they can better treat the patient. The case manager would then add in to the
conversation on the patient’s external issues such as insurance, eligibility for different programs,
connections with family members and billing factors. Sometimes, these external factors
contributed to the patient’s care and in what direction it would be headed.
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The most important thing I was able to learn from this rotation and from this class was
the nurse’s role in a patients care. There were so many differences I noticed between a
psychiatric nurse versus a med-surgical nurse. One important difference I noticed was how
handoffs were done. In our psychiatric rotations, the handoffs were done in a private room,
which was locked for privacy. This is to provide as much confidentiality of patient information
as possible. Handoffs in the med-surgical unit were not as secluded. I wonder if this is because
the patients in the psychiatric unit were allowed to roam around the nurses’ station, therefore
leaving less room for confidentiality. In med-surgical unit, the patients were all in their rooms
and most of them had their door closed so confidentiality was easier to have. However, even
with the doors closed, it’s important to keep low voices and to be further away from the
patient’s room. In addition, it was so interesting to see how nurses manage their time
differently in the psychiatric rotation and the additional assessments they have to do on top of
the normal assessments they already have to make.
Overall, this rotation has truly opened my eyes to what psychiatric nursing really is.
The nurse’s role is vital when it comes to providing the best for the patients. Their
assessments, data and their findings can enhance the overall care of the patient. The
information the nurse’s gather can greatly support or reject what the doctor has diagnosed,
which can further help identify the real issue and be able to target it better. Also, it was
interesting to see the amount of documentation and how different the SBARs looked in the
psychiatric rotation in comparison to med-surgical. This entire semester taught me that
different nurses, although they all utilize the same nursing process, have different skill sets
depending on the unit and specialty they are in.
Now that I have clinical experience, I am able to better grasp the concepts, disorders and
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medications we learn and have learned throughout the semester.
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