Prior to sim I wasn’t sure as to how it would go. This was the first time we’ve had sim with real actors and not a human made of plastic. I was nervous because I knew I would have to be quicker with my responses since it was a real human. I was also unaware as to how good the actors would be. As sim went on, I thought it went much better than I had anticipated. The hardest case for me was the first one, borderline personality disorder. The actors were so good at portraying the mental illnesses. When talking to the actor with BPD, I got to learn how quickly things can change with them. I went from starting to form rapport then I looked down at my paper for too long and she freaked. I wasn’t ready nor knew what to say when she began yelling. It most certainly caught me off guard. I also was not anticipating for our manic patient to be this high energy. I’ve meet with patients who are experiencing manic and they exhibit those traits but they were all older so they didn’t have the same spunk. It was hard for myself and my group to separate him from his alcohol. I kept feeling like I didn’t want to step over boundaries but knew I had to for the session to be successful.
Once the day ended I felt like I had learned a lot. It helped me realize that I my communication needs some work but I know that it will come with experience and confidence. I tried to do my best and stay ahead with some responses but the patients did well with saying answers that I wasn’t expecting. This taught me that I can’t prepare in mental health nursing because everyone is different. Today’s experience taught me that my mental health nursing process is better than I thought but it still needs much work.
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