Choosing a career in psychiatric-mental nursing: do more clinical placements in this area for undergraduate student nurses make a difference? (Part One).

The purpose of this article is to address the broader issue of how to increase the interest among undergraduate student nurses in choosing a career in the psychiatric-mental nursing field upon graduation. A description is given of the new clinical placement option that was offered in Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing in April-May 1989 for the 100 hours of clinical experience (Nursing 439-Intersession) for undergraduate nursing students completing their third year of their Bachelor of Nursing degree at the Faculty of Nursing, University of Calgary. One of these settings was an acute care psychiatric unit (McNab Mental Health Centre) and the other a provincial psychiatric hospital (Alberta Hospital Ponoka). This article is divided into three parts: 1) An overview of the present psychiatric-mental nursing content of the undergraduate program of U. of C.'s Faculty of Nursing; 2a) The perceptions of the four students who chose to do their Intersession-1989 clinical experience in a long-term care psychiatric setting; 2b) the perceptions of the preceptors who worked with the students in that long-term care setting; 3) and concluding comments about this relatively new venture, including some of the implications for future planning and research in terms of the issues pertaining to clinical placements, and recruitment of baccalaureate-prepared nurses for the psychiatric-mental health field.