RN RMN trigger warning

[blondey87]

My husband passed away by suicide some years ago and ever since I've worked in mental health.

I'm now applying for nursing.

I'm torn between general nursing or mental health nursing.

I feel like I am doing mental health nursing in his honour rather than because I want to. I already do a similar job and I do love it, but I find myself wanting to do more general nursing.

I'm not good at making decisions but I want to apply for January intake.

I also can only work certain hours due to having a young son, so it would be either community or general practice I work in

AIBU - take a chance on adult nursing and then if it's wrong I would have to do another degree

YNABU - stick with the mental health, this is imposter syndrome

If you can only work certain hours with a young child how will you do the necessary clinical hours to satisfy the course requirements including night's

I think there may be more opportunities to just do day hours with mental health Nursing.

You have to be available for all shift patterns during your degree placements. . You can't pick and choose.

No mental health nursing requires earlys, latest and nights. You must complete a set amount of hours on each.

Both general and mental health will need some flexibility during the degree to meet the requirements for placement hours but both have opportunities to work various shift patterns including 9-5 once qualified.

There are loads of different options for jobs as RMNs and RGNs and places where they cross over. RMNs work in GPs for example or on some general wards or in A&E. RGNs might work on older people's MH wards or drug and alcohol rehab or as part of wellbeing teams in MH hospitals or community.

What do you see yourself doing OP? What sort of client groups? Are there any opportunities for you to shadow different branches of nursing to get a taster of what might be for you?

Be extremely cautious about using your own experience of a suicide on the basis for a career. I've known quite a few people apply for mental health nursing with a similar type of story. The reality you will face is very different, it is incredibly hard to honour someone's memory when you are unable to make safe, evidence based decisions because of the challenges of reality.
Nurse training is tough, you will face your emotions mirrored back to you 10x over and have to be professional and empathetic (good) whilst retaining control (harder).
However, I'm still here after 20 years in A&E and I can't imagine ever doing anything different

There's a few things here -

If you want to do MH nursing for the sole reason that it would be in someone's honour, I'd advise against it. Its really hard going and as PP have said, the everyday reality of whichever type of nursing you decide has challenges which mean you need to choose which type of nursing YOU prefer.

You will come across a vast array of MH issues in general nursing and there are opportunities to be MH leads and that sort of thing on general wards.

Re the hours - make sure to look up the requirements for placements during the degree, it would be almost impossible to avoid doing a variety of shifts throughout the degree.