Specialty Nurse plays as a tree hole of patient
Jessie Leung, Advanced Practice Nurse (APN), has been providing psychiatric consultation service in the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department of the Caritas Medical Centre (CMC) since 2019. Upon receiving suspected patients from A&E, she will provide psychiatric assessment and triage service to psychiatric clinic, or hospitalisation subject to patients’ individual needs.
Accurate assessment is achieved by years of learning and practical experiences. She acquired the qualification of Registered Nurse after graduation. Then she studied a psychiatric post-registration certificate course 10 years later. Working in the field for over four years, she obtained the qualification of Specialty Nurse. Jessie has been promoted to APN lately. “Patients are not always willing to or good at expressing themselves. But when they know that I am a Psychiatric nurse, they will be willing to share their feelings with us.”
Jessie receives over a hundred referrals each month. In a fast-paced environment like A&E Department, finishing the patient consultation within two hours and deciding the follow-up action is the most challenging part for her. What impresses her the most was a middle-aged woman with a history of depression. The patient attended A&E due to dizziness. Her emotion was stable. But Jessie learned that she had housing problems during the consultation. Later, the patient took out three packets of rat poison from her bag and expressed suicidal idea. Jessie observed the abnormality by her clinical experiences, and arranged psychiatric treatments for the patient immediately.
“It could not describe by words when I saved her successfully. It also encouraged me to work harder in providing frontline services. In recent years, the HA emphasises nursing specialisation. The creation of the ANC rank is also an effective measure in retaining nursing staff as it provides an alternative career path to nurses. It encourages more staff to study specialty and improve their nursing skills,” Jessie also intends to take advanced psychiatric courses, and continues to be a listener opening up the patient’s heart.
Accurate assessment is achieved by years of learning and practical experiences. She acquired the qualification of Registered Nurse after graduation. Then she studied a psychiatric post-registration certificate course 10 years later. Working in the field for over four years, she obtained the qualification of Specialty Nurse. Jessie has been promoted to APN lately. “Patients are not always willing to or good at expressing themselves. But when they know that I am a Psychiatric nurse, they will be willing to share their feelings with us.”
Jessie receives over a hundred referrals each month. In a fast-paced environment like A&E Department, finishing the patient consultation within two hours and deciding the follow-up action is the most challenging part for her. What impresses her the most was a middle-aged woman with a history of depression. The patient attended A&E due to dizziness. Her emotion was stable. But Jessie learned that she had housing problems during the consultation. Later, the patient took out three packets of rat poison from her bag and expressed suicidal idea. Jessie observed the abnormality by her clinical experiences, and arranged psychiatric treatments for the patient immediately.
“It could not describe by words when I saved her successfully. It also encouraged me to work harder in providing frontline services. In recent years, the HA emphasises nursing specialisation. The creation of the ANC rank is also an effective measure in retaining nursing staff as it provides an alternative career path to nurses. It encourages more staff to study specialty and improve their nursing skills,” Jessie also intends to take advanced psychiatric courses, and continues to be a listener opening up the patient’s heart.