Your hospital has just announced it's next big push: to reach Magnet status (...or for its next big marketing campaign...or to lower its insurance rates...whatever the reason....) RNs are now being "strongly encouraged" to become board certified in their area of specialty.
In the break room, it's all anyone is talking about.
"How does someone become board certified?"
"You take an exam."
"AN EXAM?! You can't get credit for your years as a psych nurse?
"Nope. It's a 3-hour exam..."
"Oh my god...no!"
The anxiety becomes too much and you switch topics.
How can you face another exam? The exams in nursing school basically meant you were just going from one panic attack to another. And the NCLEX! Oh my gosh, what a trial THAT was! You silently think to yourself, "I thought all this test-taking business was behind me!"
Well, fear not. I've got your back.
For the past 6 months, I have been bringing together everything I've learned from my many years as a psychiatric nurse educator and creating a brand new online Exam Prep Master Course to help you achieve that elevated status as a Board Certified PMHN.
One thing I learned a long time ago is that we all have our areas of real strength--the stuff we know backwards and forwards, the stuff our colleagues come to us about. Some of us are encyclopedic on medications. Some of us are experts in reaching patients who are in crisis and know just what to say to de-escalate someone. So why study the stuff you have down cold?
That's why I've broken my Master Course into four sections, each section covering a specific area, allowing you to only pay for the material you need to study most.
Here's what I mean:
Section 1: Psychiatric Nursing Foundations.
The topics here include:
Scope of Practice and the Nurse Practice Act
Professional Performance Standards
Nursing Code of Ethics
Privacy, HIPAA, and Duty to Warn
Special Considerations in the Care of Child/Elder/Rape Victims
Voluntary vs Involuntary and Other Legal Terms
Trauma Informed Care
Providing Culturally Sensitive Care
Intro to Theorists
Erikson's Developmental Stages
The Works of Piaget and Bowlby
The Theories of Sullivan and Peplau
Adaptive and Maladaptive Defense Mechanisms, Transference and Countertransference
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Brain Anatomy and Limbic System
Neurotransmitters 101
Intro to the Therapeutic Relationship
Therapeutic Relationship: Barriers and Enhancers
Verbal Communication: Therapeutic and Untherapeutic
Psychiatric Assessment Tools
Suicide Risk Assessment
Practice Questions
Section 2: Psychiatric Diagnoses and Personality Disorders
Topics include:
Trauma- and Stress-Related Disorders
Psychotic Disorders
Bipolar Disorders
Depressive Disorders
Eating Disorders
Substance Use Disorders
Anxiety Disorders
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders
Child and Adolescent Disorders
Personality Disorders: Cluster A
Personality Disorders: Cluster B
Personality Disorders: Cluster C
Practice Questions
Section 3: Psychiatric Interventions
Topics include:
FGAs & FGA adverse effects
SGAs & SGA adverse effects
Mood stabilizers
Antidepressants
Anxiolytics
Protocols for alcohol withdrawal and detoxing
Milieu Therapy
Group Therapy and the work of Irvin Yalom
CBT, DBT, EMDR and MI
TMS, VNS, DBS and ECT
Groups RNs can run
Psychiatric Crises, Restraint and Seclusion
Practice Quest
And Section 4: Critical Topics in Psychiatric Nursing
Topics include:
Evidence-Based Practice and Research
Psychiatric Nursing Case Management 101
Outpatient Care
Types of Crises
Levels of Intervention
Nursing Organizations to Know
Healthy People Report 2020/2030 and IOM Report
QSEN
Documentation
Tobacco Cessation
and Practice Questions with Rationales and Discussion
Pretty comprehensive, right? And if you want the whole package--the entire Master Course of all 4 Sections--I'll be offering it as bundled package for you at just $199 (5/15/20 - 5/22/20 only.)
Want to see a sample of what these lessons will look and feel like? CLICK HERE to check out one I did on the Therapeutic Relationship. It's a little over 2 minutes long and covers "just the facts" of what you need to know for the exam.
For me, it's been a massive undertaking. Massive. The whole website design thing using Wix...creating and editing videos with Camtasia...designing and launching an honest-to-goodness online course through Teachable...it's been an education, let me tell you.
But even when I felt completely overwhelmed by the volume of work and the technical details involved, and there was no one there to guide me through it all, I just kept going back to my desk and putting in the time it took to learn what I had to learn in order to reach this goal.
Which is exactly what I want to help you do--keep going back to your desk (or in your case, laptop, phone or IPad), going through these lessons one by one, putting in the time you need to reach your goal.
But you won't have to go it alone, because I'll be with you every step of the way.
Exam phobia?
Pfffttt. You got this.