Psychiatric nursing: An identity crisis?

摘要

My wife recently attended a nurse practitioner conference in Ohio. People at the table introduced themselves, each job description being greeted by murmurs of approval, until my wife said that she was a psychiatric nurse practitioner working in a mental health clinic. The responses were along the lines of 'bless you for doing it as it has to be done, but that's one nursing job that I just couldn't do'. The other nurses did not mean to be rude or dismissive, but to me such comments reflect the reality that, underneath it all, they did not view psychiatric nursing as a legitimate branch of nursing.