Aapt Typical Day as Psychiatric

AAPT

Typical Day as Psychiatric Technician

I work in the inpatient psychiatric ward and my shift starts at 8 in the morning and ends at 2 in the afternoon. In this time period of 6 hours, there are specific tasks that I need to perform. The inpatient ward is divided into three sub-wards. These three sub-wards are for the male patients, female patients and children respectively. The first task of my duty is to go and take a round of all the three sub-wards and check how the patients in general are doing. After taking a round of the sub-wards, I take the patients (usually 10 patients are assigned to each technician) of the female ward for breakfast at 8:30 A.M. The breakfast ends at around 9:30 A.M. after which I take these patients back to their beds. At 10 a.m. I start making notes of the changes in the behavior and attitude of the patients assigned to me. These notes are then presented to the consultants. If the consultants suggest that there is a need for us to contact the family of some patients, it is my duty to arrange the meeting of the consultant with the family of the patient. At 11 a.m. I go to the sub-wards again and start interacting with the patients. I discuss their problems with them, reassure them that they will be fine and show great empathy for them so that they can feel good about themselves. It is also my duty to restrain the patients that I think are becoming more violent with every passing day. Then at 12:30 P.M. I take the patients assigned to me for lunch. I sit with them while they have their meal, talk to them so that they feel better. During this time I note their behavior and body language and then later on make notes of it. At 1:30 P.M. I take these patients back to their beds. After completing my notes and any other pending work, I sign out of the ward at 2 p.m.

Why Do I want to be certified?

As the name suggests, certification makes a person more valid and reliable. Certification is a designation of professional status to verify that a person has the skill and ability to perform the functions of his or her profession. Certification is therefore given to individual who pass certain examinations (Tache & Chapman, 2006) Regardless of what career or job pathway a person chooses to pursue, certification is quite necessary. Certification comes after a person has gone through a proper full fledged program. These programs therefore provide the students with the adequate skills and knowledge required to be a technician. Needless to say, a technician in the real world can go on to face many different sorts of cases. Certification therefore provides a person with the caliber and the ability to look over a vast variety of cases. Another very obvious benefit of certification is that it provides you with a license and with the ability to work on a decent salary. Therefore employment opportunities increase and become more accessible for the technician after certification. The person is employed more readily and given more decent job packages as well.

Currently, I am in the military feel and certification doesn't seem very advantageous as of now. Certification however does put me on a higher rank as compared to the other people working with me. It also goes on to show that I am more competitive when it comes to evaluation. As I stated earlier, I am in the military unit right now and not in the actual field of psychiatric technician. Looking into the future, I think that certification gives a technician quite an advantage when working in the psychiatric field. Therefore, I am in favor of certification and feel as if it is a good step forward.

An incident of restraint

To restrain means to put a person under control when it appears necessary to prevent serious harm to the patient or another person. (Sailas & Wahlbeck, 2006) It should be noted that the concept of restraining the mentally ill only developed its origins because people wanted to feel safe around mentally ill patients. Thus, this show confirms the belief many people have that the physical restraint is a defense mechanism that the hospital and the technicians have to protect themselves. (Moosa & Jeenah, 2009) As it would be expected many of the mentally ill patients who arrive have a lot of potential to cause damage to them. I came across one patient who used anything near her to cause damage to her. Even though, as per protocol, we did remove any sharp objects from her, she used her nails to scratch herself. Even after we cut her nails, the patient used to bang her head on the wall and hit herself so hard that resulted in large bruises all over her body.

Even after removing all sharp objects, the amount of physical damage was not reducing. This therefore led us to make use of physical restraint. We had to tie her down on the wall such that she isn't able to move and cause more damage to herself. She was tied down in a very firm manner and was not able to move. Along with tying her down, the technicians around her informed her about the reason she is being tied down. She was medicated with anti-depressant medications and counseled about her actions. Within just a week of this restraint, decent recovery was seen in the patient. The patient was depressed due to many reasons and she underwent therapy while being tied down. Therefore, it was seen that therapy and restrain both worked in getting the person back to normal mental state.

Chart the incident

Subjective

Chief Complaint: The patient is a 26-year-old female presenting with increased irritability and aggressiveness. The patient is reluctant to enter the facility and needs to be dragged to her allotted room. Patient is presenting with increased aggressiveness and irritability. The patient complains of being very depressed and having suicidal thoughts very frequently.

HPI: The patient was referred to the mental health unit after failing to commit suicide three times. The patient attempted to cut her wrist all three times and reports of having an inclination for physically hurting herself. The patient's past social history reveals increased child abuse and change from one foster home to another. The patient did not respond to any anti-depressant medications and now needs constant supervision so she does not try to kill herself again.

Past Medical History: Not significant

Objective:

The patient looks depressed and not very aware of her surroundings. There are numerous bruises seen on her arms and her hands. The patient appears pale and is breathing heavily.

Vitals:

R/R: 25

Blood Pressure: 130/90 mmhg

Temp: Afebrile

Pulse: 100 beats/min

Physical Examination: Not performed. (The patient is non-compliant)

Assessment

The patient is undergoing a major depression episode and requires very close monitoring. The patient has failed to respond to any medical intervention and feels worthless and wants to end her life. The patient condition has worsened over time and she needs serious psychological and physical intervention immediately.

Plan

The patents suicidal tendencies can only be reduced by physically tying down the patient. It has been observed that the patient hurts herself thorough any means possible. Subsequent to securing the patient and removing all sharp items from the patient, she will be medicated with anti-depressant medicated. Psychological intervention will also be conducted twice daily to monitor the patient and counsel her about her condition.

This is an example of the SOAP chart and it is used to write down all the details of the patient. The subjective part describes the problem in detail and provides the patient's entire medical history. The objective part is there to present any physical and chemical test results that would aid in the diagnosis. This brings us to the assessment part which presents the diagnosis of the patient. The plan is therefore the plan that will be used to treat the patient's condition.

Bad Treatment

As it would be expected, the mentally patients perceive the staff as a great threat but keep an overall negative attitude towards them. (Brown & Tooke, 1992) The type of restraints used in a mental health unit includes physical restraint, mental restraint and chemical restraint. Even though some forms of restraint might be beneficial for the patient, many people feel that restraint violates the freedom and rights of these patients. The worst kind of restraint that I witness was when I observed chemical and physical restraint on a patient who did not require restraint. As it was stated it above cases, restraint would be required if the person is not responsive to therapy and medications. I witnessed a patient who was very depressed and needed therapy. She needed a technician to listen her out and provide her possible tactics to aid with her depression.

The bad treatment that I witnessed was that she was sedated even though it was not required. Chemically restraining the patient without requirement is bad treatment but that was not the only thing that happened. The technician without any reason sexually abused the patient and removed all clothing even though that is not present in the protocol. As mentioned earlier, the protocol is to remove any sharp items. If I was there in this case, I would have not sedated the patient and talked to the patient about the problem. As stated earlier, the patient desperately needed therapy and did not require sedation. Therefore, I would treat the patient with counseling and therapy and mild anti-depressant medication. Seeing how the patient was a vulnerable, she would be monitored to see if she displays any suicidal tendency. Regardless, the patient's privacy and dignity would be well preserved.

What I Like About This Job

For all those who have the passion to serve the humanity and take care of the people, being a psychiatric technician is the perfect career for these people. There is no doubt in the fact that the people who are admitted to the psychiatric ward are going through great trauma. These people need the love and attention of their family, friends and absolutely anyone around them. Since the consultants do not have that much time to give to every individual patient, the psychiatric technician is the one that has to interact with the patients and the family of the patients on a daily basis. After a great deal of effort, care and empathy, when the patients start showing their trust in me, that gives me a great feeling of accomplishment.

This is the kind of job that allows one to give ample time to one's studies. I have completed my diploma in psychiatry and now I want to pursue further education in the field. The timings of my duty are very convenient; therefore I can easily carry on with my studies. Moreover, the tasks that have been given to me are also very convenient and they make it possible for me to learn a lot about this field.

There are many patients who come to the hospital in a very bad condition. They stay in the hospital under our supervision; we interact with them and help them come out of their psychiatric problem. Many of these patients get well and are discharged from the hospital. When they leave healthy, it gives you an unexplainable feeling of accomplishment and encourages one to do even better in this field (Loscin, 2013).

List of Topics

1. Introduction

This topic will include a detailed explanation of the aims and objectives for writing this book. It will also include a brief summary of the main themes that are contained in the book.

2. Characteristics of a Psychiatric Technician

This chapter would explain in detail the characteristics that should be owned by a psychiatric technician. It will also briefly mention the characteristics that are absolute contra-indications for a psychiatric technician. Apart from this, this chapter will also include the habits that need to be adopted by the technician and exercises through which he or she can attain the characteristics of being a good psychiatrist technician (Psychiatric Technicians and Aides, 2012).

3. What a Technician needs to know about psychiatry

This chapter will briefly list and explain the knowledge that a technician needs to have about psychiatry. It will also explain briefly the degrees that a technician should achieve to become successful in this field.

4. How to deal with different types of patients

A psychiatric technician needs to know that every psychiatric patient will behave in a different way. Therefore, he should have sound knowledge as to how he or she should deal with every kind of patient. This chapter will give a brief summary of the different behaviors that psychiatric patients and exhibit and the ways these patients should be dealt with.

5. Career choices for Psychiatric Technician

This chapter would not offer alternatives to the psychiatric technicians, but it would inform the technician what he can do to become successful in this field.

6. Conclusion

This chapter would simply sum up whatever is contained in the book. Moreover, it will also sum up all the important advices that have been given to a psychiatric technician in this book.

The best psychiatric technician

There are many technicians that I come across every day, but there are some that become a source of motivation for their colleagues. One of such technician who used to work with me was Mr. Tim Harry (not his real name). The reason why I consider him one of the best technicians is that he had all the characteristics that should be there in a person if he or she wants to become a successful technician. It should be noted here that when a person is working in a psychiatric ward, he needs to have a really high patience threshold since many patients become violent and hurl abuses at the people around them (AAPT, 2007). Tim was the kind of person who was always happy and he made others happy as well. Every morning when he would come to his duty, he would greet each and every patient in the ward. He would even go up to the patients who were not assigned to him and helped them with whatever he could. Many times I also noticed him staying beyond his duty hours and making use of this time by interacting and socializing with patients. He never reacted to whatever negative remarks some patients hurled at him. He was also up for learning and expanding his knowledge about the field. The aforementioned are the reasons why so many of the patients would start admiring him. Once they started admiring him, they started putting their trust in him. This gave him a great edge to peep into their hearts and minds and therefore this is what made it possible for him to treat them appropriately and to make appropriate notes. Because of his gentle behavior, patients also listened to what Tim told them to do and this was in itself a great help in their treatment. Apart from this, he would also always help his colleagues with any sort of help that they needed. Another major attribute shown by him is that he takes people's wishes and their ethics into consideration. A psychiatrist should therefore know when certain ethical issues make an impact on the patient and he should accordingly with them. (Howe, 2011)

Skills Needed

A psychiatrist should have a good set of personal attributes that make his or her job easier. A psychiatrist should be able to observe and listen in a very good manner. Another important skill is that a psychiatric technician should maintain their own integrity and ethical conduct. Often when psychiatrists are placed in certain situations, they tend to give their own judgment about a person. Therefore, the psychiatric technician should have a nonjudgmental viewpoint and cognizance of their own limitation. They should exhibit empathy and compassion to the patient; however, they should also be firm to present their point across (Nasrallah 2011) Another crucial skill to have is the curiosity and mindset of a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist should be inquisitive and be able to take from any signals from the patient.