This week at San Marcos Treatment Center I was assigned to Spring Hill 2 girls unit. This unit consisted of teenage girls varying in age from fourteen to seventeen. I had the opportunity to look at charts as well as become familiar with the role of the registered nurse on this unit. I also had the opportunity to follow the girls to the school yard and attend classes with them as well. Being in the classroom helped me gain a new insight on the girls behaviors on and off the unit. This week I noticed the girls were more cooperative and very engaged in classroom discussions.
Today my knowledge about growth and development helped me to understand why majority of the children at SMTC have the same medical diagnosis of, oppositional defiant disorder. Most of the children there come from broken homes or have been in and out of foster care for various reasons. Growth and development is critical to these children's lives because of their backgrounds. I feel like SMTC helps in the growth and development process in many ways. This place gives these children room to learn and grow in order to have a better future. Attending classes and engaging with peers play an important part in many of their lives. Developing friendships and being in a positive environment contributes to their growth as children. When they become discharged I feel like they will have the potential to have a different mindset about life compared to their past.
This has impacted me by opening my mind to numerous things that I had never really thought about happen in children's lives. Some of these children have been through things I couldn't imagine going through, which I feel is somewhat responsible for their aggressive behavior and outburst towards others. I know as a nurse caring for these types of patients may be a difficult task. Developing that patient -nurse relationship is going to be important. Continuing to build my therapeutic communication skills will always be my duty as a nurse.
When I went to the clinic the psychiatric nurse practitioner explained the whole admission process to me, from both her role as well the general nurse practitioner role. She provide me with handout explaining the various steps of admission as well as questions she may ask the child. The main role as a psychiatric nurse was to obtain information about behaviors and the reasoning behind those behaviors. The general nurse practitioners role was to obtain data about the child's physical abilities.
During group I attended a session where the girls had to participate in a debate. One group was focused on the positives about being at SMTC and the other was focused on why they shouldn't be there. The therapist was very assertive and had a hard time making the girls understand the purpose of a debate. I feel like it was to complex for them to comprehend and maybe he could have made the questions more simple. All the girls really had a hard time formulating responses. I don't feel like it was very beneficial to them. He did mention it was something he just wanted to experiment with and should have provided more details and information prior to the debate. The initial purpose was to try and make some of the girls take on a role of leadership in the debate. Overall I enjoyed my experiences at San Marcos Treatment Center.