This class centered around clinical psychiatric and mental health issues found commonly within society.  This class opened my eyes to another side of nursing.  Although psychiatric nursing is not glamorous I realized throughout observing at clinical the critical need for nurses who desperately want to elevate mental health and improve upon the stigma that is surrounding this subject.  Although I am not sure I would be able to handle the amount of responsibility, commitment, and drain psychiatric nursing can inflict upon an individual it opened my eyes more than any other class had previously in the field of nursing.  It pained me to see a patient thrown in a room with a helmet on left there by himself while he laid in the middle of the floor.  In my personal opinion, this is not patient-centered care nor is it providing quality health care.  I believe many times health care workers lose themselves in a job and forget what they are even doing this for.  I spoke to so many patients that were just so grateful that someone took the time to talk to them and hear them out. Yes, I was probably extremely gullible and believed fake stories they came up with, but I would rather them feel touched by someone and heard than to be worried that the story they are telling me is false.

This class was my final enhancement thus completing my honors courses at Longwood University.  I completed my enhancement on psychotropic medications and the long term effects to the mother and the fetus.  This project opened my eyes to another side of health care that is quite puzzling.  I realized there is a huge disconnect between treating mothers with psychiatric illnesses especially when they are pregnant due to the ability for medications to cross the placenta.  I am still troubled by this project and feel a strong desire to help change this side of health care as a child should not suffer from a medication the mother must take, but a mother should also not have to suffer with her mental illness going unchecked while pregnant.  There is a desperate need for further research which has now lit a desire for me to understand this field of study further.

Please find attached a copy of a paper I completed for this course focused on depression and all the facets associated with it such as medications, clinical manifestations, background, therapy, etc.,