Tina Curtis, Registered Psychiatric Nurse
My Job
Assessment skills
(TEXT FROM SOUND BITE)
"A large part of my job is assessment.
"I get the referral and call that person in the community and I ask them to come in for an appointment. I interview them for about an hour and I basically get their life story - a history of their present illness.
"Then the next time we meet, the psychiatrist is there and he asks essentially the same sorts of things but gets anything I've missed. He works on the diagnosis and any medication questions. And from all of that we come up with our assessment and recommendations."