My degree just came in the mail Saturday.

Can I be included in the thread now that my Master's is official? Come on, I talk to myself and everything, someone throw me out there!
Quote:
Originally Posted by AGDee
When you work on psych units in hospitals, you have to have total trust in your co-workers, know that they are alert and have your back, and communicate constantly, not only about the status of patients, but about your personal status because your job is very dependent on your own personal emotional state being steady. After an extreme situation on a unit was resolved, the team would get together to make sure all the staff were ok, not just physically, but emotionally and then to process how it was handled, if anything could have been done differently, if there were signs ahead of time that something was awry, etc.
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Wow, I wish I could've worked where you worked. I didn't trust my co-workers worth a lick and for good reason. I was left alone on the units ALL the time but we were always so short-staffed it was often avoidable. The budget cuts to the mental health system are wreaking havoc on staffing. After a "situation," there was never a debriefing afterward, we all went back to our posts because there just wasn't enough staff to be gone longer than necessary. In fact, there was often not enough staff to come help with a code AT ALL, the two people left on the unit would have to fend for themselves. We reported that place because operating on a skeleton crew puts everyone in danger (we'd have increased staffing for awhile, then it'd dwindle again). While it was a great job, I'm very glad I'm not there anymore.