I have a lot of nurses in my family. My sister is a nurse. She’s retired but she specialized in cardiac research. My husband has seven siblings, three were nurses. One was the head of trauma nursing at her hospital, the other two worked in long-term care. We have many nurses at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch. Obviously, whenever I or someone I love seeks medical care, nurses are involved.
With the exception of one or two outliers who chose the wrong career, every nurse I have encountered has been a caring, engaged, dedicated individual. They are predisposed to kindness, and bring empathy and humanity to medical care.
They don’t often learn much about working with mental health patients.
At the Ranch, we host student nurses in a variety of formats. Some tour our campuses. Some do clinical rotations with us. Some intern here. Happily, some who first came here as students return as nursing staff. While they are here, they learn about working with child trauma survivors who have psychiatric challenges. It is often their first exposure to mental health nursing.
We just had two groups of student nurses finish their time with us. At their exit, they were asked to share what they had learned that they could take into their future careers. I was particularly heartened by these responses:
- "I learned that sometimes they just need a good listener. I learned that we still treat them as whole and equal. They have the same needs as any other patient that needs to be addressed and resolved."
- "One of the young clients was experiencing a severe anxiety attack and was visibly distressed. The RN quickly responded with calmness and empathy. She gently guided the client to a quiet area, speaking in a soothing voice to help de-escalate the situation. This showed me how to be professional and compassionate."
- "During this clinical experience, I had the opportunity to be around all different kinds of residents ranging in different ages, genders, beliefs, and cultures. I think sometimes humans are too quick to judge people without actually knowing anything about them. We do not see what is going on behind doors or what mental disorder people are dealing with. This clinical experience has opened my eyes to not being so quick to judge someone, as we are all fighting battles that we hide. I also learned that everyone is different and we all handle issues and mental health disorders differently and uniquely."
- "It is so different here because we have been doing nursing skills in other clinicals, but these experiences require a lot of therapeutic communication and skills we have not yet been able to utilize much. Here I actually felt like I learned so much!"
- "I was able to gain more patience for the children at the Ranch after reading about their experiences and meeting the kids themselves, but I still believe the staff that work there are saints!""I was surprised by a couple of things at the Ranch, but one thing that impressed me was the quality of care the staff provided to the residents. They treated them with dignity, and were open with communication to them and really seemed to care about the residents. This was really heart-warming to see the children cared about so much."
Overall, I think our children and staff taught these folks a lot. I hope it helps them be great nurses.
Please keep our kids and staff in your prayers.
In His love,
Joy Ryan, President/CEO
Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch
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