The role in mental health nursing is not for everyone. When someone asks me in what area did I specialized as a nurse, I proudly say: “I’m a psychiatric nurse”; nevertheless, almost everyone looks at me confused and asks me: “Out of every area, why do you want to work with ‘those’ people?", or they would just ask me: “Are you sure? Keep exploring other areas”. This is an example of mental health stigma and a lack of knowledge, but I always tell them: “There are many people out there who needs help, who needs to be understood, who needs to feel like there’s real hope. Sometimes they feel deprived in seeking help precisely because of the stigma. Our mental health is just as important as our physical health. We cannot be healthy without a holistic balance”. …show more content…
Ever since I started nursing school, I always said that I wanted to be a psychiatric nurse. When I did my rotation in this area, I always saw nurses who loved their work and nurses who didn’t, but still worked in this area. The main reason I want to do graduate work in this field is because during my interventions, patients used to tell me how frustrated they felt because of how bad the staff treated them. This is sad, but I know that compromised, compassionate and empathic nurses can make a change in how the care is delivered and I want to expand my knowledge to be able to treat better our patients. After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, our whole population was emotionally devastated. Two days after the hurricane, I started going to a women’s domestic violence shelter. They put me in charge as a nurse, and I had to manage cases of women whose mental health conditions exacerbated and, therefore, had suicidal thoughts. Since our health sector collapsed, I went to the shelter every day to assess, intervene on a one-on-one basis with the patients and re-evaluate my nursing care