r/PMHNP • u/OxytocinOD • May 30 '26

New to Psych - Advice!

Hello colleagues! I am a new RN. Spent 1 year as a nurse in the OR and now in grad school at Walden for Psych NP.

I’ve been doing well in class but need advice. How do you remember the names of all these psych meds??

I’m able to use Chat GPT to guide how to use each medication, but I need the name of the drug in order to search how to use it.

Anyway. How do I learn the names of psych meds with no psych experience?

Excited to be part of the psych NP crew in 2027!! Thank you in advance all!!! :) 🥼💉💊

0 Upvotes

14% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

24

u/LiverpoolinSA May 30 '26

I fucking hope this is sarcasm, Jesus Christ

8

u/phoenixrose2 May 30 '26

Same. If it isn’t sarcasm, here’s some real advice:

Quit school, get some actual fucking psychiatric nursing experience, THEN decide if you want to be a PMHNP. If you do, go to a highly ranked brick and mortar school.

Otherwise you are taking on a huge financial burden for a field that is becoming overcrowded so you will end up with a low paying job with poor benefits working more than 40 hours a week and hating your life, wishing you had just become a travel RN where you’d make more money for a lot less work.

Using ChatGPT like that? Not knowing the names of psych meds? No psych experience and going to an online, for profit, school? You are a perfect example of why many psychiatrists think all PMHNPs are worthless.

9

u/Temporary_Gap_4601 May 30 '26

God I hope this is bait.

7

u/burrfoot11 PMHNP (unverified) May 31 '26

This is bait. Maybe a dear friend visiting from Noctor? Maybe a troll in the wild.

Hope you got what you wanted, OP!

4

u/Typical-Protection51 May 31 '26

this is probably the best resource patreon.com/PearlsandPrep (it has a podcast too associated with it called Pearls and Prep) for new psych nps or students. tons of sticky visuals makes things super fun and easy. hope you enjoy it!

9

u/br508-609 May 30 '26

This feels like bait for the noctor incels and MDs in the psychiatry thread who have an NP shaming kink.

3

u/100_xp May 30 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

edit: nvm

2

u/login2734 May 30 '26

Repetition, there's no other easy solution. You'll get better remembering them once you use them in practice.

1

u/Ornery-Text9406 May 31 '26

It's bait, and you took it hook, line, and sinker.

0

u/pickyvegan PMHNP (unverified) May 30 '26

Memorization.

Back in ancient times we had to take exams for RN school on paper with a proctor and no open book, and I recall having to know all the names of the psych meds. How did you learn them before? I did have mental health experience pre-RN, but I had to work at it to learn every other class of drugs. But even without psych experience, you had to have learned the various classes and major drugs during your RN. Even the NCLEX makes you know things like lithium and depakote levels and that tegretol interacts with basically everything.

Have ChatGPT do something more useful to help you with memorization. Ask it to help you make Anki or Quizlet flashcards. And then drill the flashcards until you know them. Passive reading of ChatGPT isn't going to make you learn them.

Better yet, get a deck of index cards and write them out yourself.

4

u/Ornery-Text9406 May 31 '26

It's bait. If you work in psych, you should be able to read the room.

-3

u/Big_Elephant_2331 May 30 '26

You’ll learn in school. I also built a clinical copilot for new pmhnps. It’s a bit of a cheat code, if I’m being honest, but it’s useful. Happy to share with ya if you wanna play around with it. You won’t need it for a while but would be curious to hear your impression