In this post, I am going to write about my experience and the overview of this class. I took this class by itself because, at the time, my preceptor for my practicum (PRAC 6635) class backed out. What I should have done is take this class with another didactic class as it is allowed. I could have saved time.
This class is the first four didactic core classes I must take to complete the program. I see this as the introduction to the nitty and gritty of being a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Without withholding anything, I have to confess the tests were horrific! I strongly feel that this class, along with the previous class, NURS 6630 – Psychopharmacologic Approaches to Treatment of Psychopathology, was the “weed” eliminator. This means that the class drops or fails most of the enrolled students in the program.
Week 1: Housekeeping, acknowledgment of the Practicum Manual, and an open discussion; typically, you would post your primary response and reply to two peers on two separate days.
Week 2: Discussion minus the housekeeping part.
Weeks 3 and 4: The introduction of psychiatric assessment skills. Walden University (WaldenU) provides the template. To be honest, I use this template in my clinical rotation (practicum) when I have an intake. The more you use it, the easier it gets. You are given a chance to select a video of a patient being interviewed by a clinician. Week 3 is all about mood disorders. Week 4 is learning about anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Week 5: Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders; Dissociative and Somatic Symptom-Related Disorders. Usually, the week before the mid-term, there will be nothing due. This week will just be a reading assignment, allowing you to review and study for the exam.
Week 6: MIDTERM plus a reading assignment about eating, sleeping, and elimination disorders. The test is 100 questions, a combination of critical and application questions.
Honestly, I would almost failed this class if it wasn’t for my papers and the added points. Most of my peers scored low, and the university had to review most of the questions and give back points.
Week 7: All about Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders; Medication-Induced Movement Disorders. Like week 4, you would have to pick a video, formulate a full psychiatric assessment, and use the template provided.
Week 8, 9, and 10: Talks about Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders; Personality and Paraphilic Disorders; and Neurocognitive and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (week 10). The same concept – writing a psychiatric evaluation and using the template to submit a full paper.
Week 11: From my experience, usually, there is not much going on in the last week. Depending on the class, it will be either a reflection note, a reading assignment, or the finals.
In conclusion, this was not an easy class for me. Remember, in the beginning; I was supposed to take this class (didactic) with a practicum class. I”m glad that I didn’t. I would probably have dropped out! Maybe not… but I would have cried for many days just because it was different than my previous classes. I eventually got used to it (taking both didactic and practicum together). See my other post about the NRNP class and my videos about this class on my YouTube channel or read on to the next class that I took.
