The advanced practice nurse chosen for this interview is Christopher Shaw. The specific nursing area that I wish is family mental health. I chose Shaw for this interview due to his advanced knowledge and experience in the practice of mental health care. I was introduced to Shaw through a friend who works under him in the psychiatric nursing unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. I then booked an appointment with him for this interview that he accepted. Shaw is a certified advanced mental health-nursing practitioner who has vast experience in nursing and particularly with mental units both within America and internationally. He holds an advanced certification for practice addictions from International Nurses Society of Addictions. He currently works as an advanced family psychiatric nurse and as a psychiatric nursing unit leader at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Section B
Christopher Shaw has an office at the psychiatric section of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston at the psychiatric inpatient Unit. He is in charge of all the inpatient psychiatric nurses that work with this unit. While Shaw works in general hospital, his practice is mainly dedicated to the psychiatric wing, and hence his clinical environment of practice is mainly in an exclusive psychiatric environment. Furthermore, Shaw practices independent family nursing outside his formal employment in Massachusetts General Hospital. It includes patient homes, exclusive mental facilities, and private hospitals that seek his service most often. As such, Shaw has experience in a diverse clinical environment of family mental health practice.
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Section C
The official position that Christopher Shaw holds at Massachusetts General Hospital is NP Team Leader. He is the leaders of the nurses in the inpatient section of the psychiatric wing of the hospital.
In his role, Shaw has several responsibilities. First, he monitors the medication of patients and their response to their medication. Moreover, he carries out periodic patient assessments and documents the results of such assessments. He also documents patient medication, prescriptions diagnosis and treatment outcomes (Mcconachie & Lamza, 2016). He diagnoses patients with diverse mental health conditions as well as other psychiatric disorders. Shaw further assesses patient behavior to diagnose or assess the treatment progress. He analyses patient data with the view of establishing the needs of the patient and setting up treatment goals for the patient. Moreover, he actively participates in educating families whose member has a psychiatric condition on how best to deal with them and give home-based care (Gately & Trudeau, 2017). On continuous improvement, Shaw comes up with new protocols for psychiatric treatment that are based on evaluations and reviews as well as new publications. Lastly, Shaw refers psychiatric patients for more specialized psychiatric care particularly in complicated cases.
Christopher Shaw has held the position of NP Team Leader at Massachusetts General Hospital for the last three years. Before this position, he was a general nursing practitioner working in the same department in the hospital. Shaw has previously worked as a psychiatric healthcare trainer in several countries in Africa on optimal psychiatric treatment and home-based care of such patients. Shaw chose to leave his position as a nurse in the psychiatric unit after having been appointed to a higher role of NP Team Leader in the same department of the hospital.
The job requirement for the position of NP Team Leader to which Christopher Shaw was employed required one to have a master’s degree in nursing. It further required certification in psychiatric mental health nursing (Stewart & Denisco, 2014). The person suitable for this job was required to have five-year experience in a psychiatric clinical environment. Moreover, the person was required to demonstrate strong communication and leadership skills (Wand & White, 2017). Shaw demonstrated the requirements thus the appointment to the position.
Shaw explained that his vision for the department is developing an all-inclusive healthcare system for psychiatric patients that would incorporate family members and communities. He seeks to educate the families and communities so that they can play an active role in home-based psychiatric health care and create an environment that supports recovery (Stickley & Basset, 2010). His philosophy in this position is always to embrace evidence-based practices and encourage junior nurses to do so.
Shaw also explained that the most challenging aspect of his role was to enforce changes within this unit. As new changes within this nursing practice are published based on evidence, it is important to incorporate such changes in nursing procedures (Elsom, Happell & Manias, 2013). However, Shaw has experienced resistance from junior nurses while implementing such changes. He intends to overcome this challenge by continuously encouraging junior nurses on the importance of embracing change.
Section D
Shaw confirms his satisfaction of working in a psychiatric unit. He intends to enroll in a master’s degree program that mainly specializes in advanced psychiatric nursing. Currently, he is mainly involved in mentoring other junior nurses. He further explained that he has always encouraged them to take up further studies that specialized in family psychiatric care.
Section E
This interview was very informative and encouraging. Through this interview, I have understood the roles of an advanced family psychiatric nurse and the clinical environment within which they operate. I further learned about the unique challenges that this career option comes with. Mr. Shaw further encouraged me to take up a specialty in psychiatric care nursing (Stewart & Denisco, 2014).
In summary, Shaw has had an existing career as an NP team leader for the time he has held this position. His roles include patient monitoring, diagnosing of psychiatric conditions, monitoring how patients respond to treatment. He further seeks to advance his career in line with family psychiatric care. The interview motivated me to take up this specialty equally.
References
Elsom, S., Happell, B., & Manias, E. (2013). Mental health nurse practitioner: Expanded or advanced? International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 14 (3), 181-186.
Gately, M., & Trudeau, S. (2017). Occupational therapy and advanced dementia: A practitioner survey. Journal of Geriatric Mental Health, 4 (1), 48.
Mcconachie, S., & Lamza, C. (2016). Using the advanced nurse practitioner to build perinatal mental health services. British Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 5 (3), 105-110.
Stewart, J. & Denisco, S. M. (2014). Role Development for a Nurse practitioner . Jones & Barlett Learning
Stickley, T., & Basset, T. (2010). The Capable Practitioner of the Future. Learning about Mental Health Practice, 571-574.
Wand, T., & White, K. (2017). Progression of the mental health nurse practitioner role in Australia. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 14 (7), 644-651.
