In US society, mental health is a very stigmatized topic. In school, I can’t recall a time we really talked about mental health and the importance of taking care of yourself. I think mental health is something that is often overlooked because it is harder to see when someone is struggling, at least compared to physical health. Today we went to visit the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, and we talked a lot about the importance of mental health and how maintaining a good mental health is key to having good overall health. We also talked a lot about what mental health nursing is in the UK. This was interesting because I feel like metal health nursing and the importance of this profession is often overlooked in the US healthcare system.

In the UK, there are four different pathways nursing students have to choose between at the start of university: adult, children, learning disabilities, and mental health. Whereas in the US, the nursing program is much more generalized, and you don’t pick a specialty until you enter the field. Personally, I prefer the US approach because having to pick a specialty from the get-go seems intimidating. I would prefer to gain experience in multiple areas before selecting a specialty. Anyways, mental health nursing is a tough profession. From talking to a few nurses at the Trust, it seems that mental health nursing is very sporadic. Lots of unexpected things can come up (i.e. mental health nursing is less task based) and you have to be able to handle a lot of different situations when it comes to caring for your patients. One thing I admired about these nurses, however, is how much of them they sacrifice in order to improve the lives of their patients. Compared to adult nursing (at least in the UK) mental health nurses work longer shifts. They typically work 13-hour shifts rather than 12-hour shifts to keep a level of consistency for patients. Also, when it comes to mental health nursing, you have to take a more holistic approach and understand the whole patient in order to be able to best help them. Personally, I don’t think I could be a mental health nurse!

While at the Trust, I got tour the outpatient facilities they have. Within these facilities they have different ways to assess their patients to ensure that they will be able to succeed in society once they are fully released. They had a mock laundry room and kitchen so that they could assess the skill levels of their patients to determine if the patients can safely perform these tasks. It was really interesting to see the UK’s approach to mental health nursing because in the US I feel like mental health nursing is overlooked due to how much it is stigmatized.

I also finally got to go to that library and the inside was really cool! It had these blue lights hanging from the bookshelves as well as series of steps to access the books on the higher-level shelves. I wish the public library by my home looked like this! This library also has observation decks where you can oversee the city of Birmingham. They also had a Shakespeare room which I though was interesting.

That’s all for today! Today was out last full day in Birmingham. Tomorrow, we go to London, and I am very excited for that!