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March 5, 2008

Georgia in desperate need of psychiatric nurses

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[Transcript]

ATLANTA –With more than 100 suspicious deaths in psychiatric care facilities in recent years, mental health care in Georgia has fallen on troubled times. Doing its part to respond to this crisis Georgia State University will begin offering an advanced degree specializing in psychiatric care for nurse practitioners this fall, says Barbara Woodring, director of the Byrdine F. Lewis School of Nursing.

WOODRING: The mission of the school and the university is to meet the needs of the public and the state of Georgia. I think this program is just tailored to do that. Much of the news casting over the past six or eight months has pointed out the need for increased care and awareness in our psychiatric mental health facilities. Some of the tragedies that have been reported on the news occurred because there were not sufficient nurses and there were not sufficient health care providers that were trained to recognize problems other than psychiatric mental health problems. (length: 0.44)

In addition to the deaths, an Atlanta Journal Constitution investigation detailed almost 200 cases of patient abuse. One of the problems, linked to mental health care facilities, is a shortage of nurses. The Georgia Department of Labor has projected that in 2010 the state will need more than 140,000 new and replacement health officials. Cece Grindel, a professor of nursing at Georgia State, says the new master’s program will give nurses special preparation not only in identifying psychiatric mental health needs, but also in identifying common adult physical, medical and surgical problems.

WOODRING: There has been a lot of information out there that we really need to have a program where nurses are prepared to do adult health assessment and management of adult chronic diseases and management of medication that goes along with those diseases. Currently the psych-mental nurses, advance practice nurses haven’t been trained to do that. (length: 0.17)

Georgia State expanded its nursing program in 2006 when it began holding doctoral classes online. The new master’s degree, which is the first of its kind in the state, will continue this online trend, requiring students to attend class at Georgia State once a month and spend 720 hours studying in a clinical setting.

WOODRING: We are hoping to bring students that are really committed to psych-mental health care. There’s a desperate need for those kinds of nurses in this state. Clearly we want them all to meet our criteria for admissions, but the most important thing is serving our commitment to serving this special population. (length 0.13)

Faculty are hoping the program, which will place a new emphasis on mental health training, draws not only those who’ve just completed their undergraduate nursing degrees, but also nurses currently working, who want additional certification in psychiatric care.

WOODRING: “I just think it’s so important to have nurses who care for those who are less than fully competent mentally and to be very astute about all aspects of their care. Right now the media focuses on people like Britney Spears and her behavior, and her actions with her children, losing sight of the fact that there is a true need that underlies this behavior. And that you have to look beyond the superficial and into the depth of the individual, and that’s what we hope to prepare our practitioners to do. (length: 0.37)

For Georgia State University RadioLine, I’m Michelle Handelman.