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The Family Clinical Nurse Specialist: Promoting Health in People with Mental Health Conditions
What is a Family Clinical Nurse Specialist (FCNS)? An FCNS is an advanced practice registered nurse, who has earned a master’s or doctorate degree. FCNSs are clinical experts in a specialized area of nursing practice. The FCNS has a unique role to integrate care across the continuum of three...
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Meeting the Medical Needs of People with Serious Mental Illness: Will New Initiatives Work?
On average, people with serious mental illness die at a much younger age than people without serious mental illness. Estimates range from about 10 to 25 years younger. They are also much more likely to have serious physical disorders including obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease,...
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Developmental Disabilities Nurses: Consultants in Mental Health Settings
There has been recent discussion about health reform and its potential impact in the community setting. With the implementation of a new or changed concept there comes a period of transition. Discussions that include exchanges of ideas to ease the transitional process may become very relevant if...
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Medicating Mindfully: How Your Doctor Thinks
It’s been said that prescribing medication for our patients is as much art as science. Certainly, the science of psychopharmacology has exploded over the past three decades. Our understanding of how and where medications work has become identifiable and precise. Effects and side effects have been...
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The NYSPA Report – DSM-5: The Future Face of Psychiatry
Most people who walk into a psychiatrist’s office have never heard of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and yet it is one of the most important and widely used texts in all of medicine. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, more than 50 million...
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How Our Programs Are Making a Difference
Numerous consumer surveys, research projects, interviews and patient satisfaction studies confirm what most clinicians already know—behavioral health consumers want and need the same things the rest of us do; a balanced, rewarding and healthy life. The role of psychosocial rehabilitation...
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Successful Consumers Make Successful Providers
There is a Danish proverb that says, “He knows the water best who has waded through it.” For those who are traversing the waters of mental illness, this is particularly true, and it is with this knowledge that Federation of Organizations was among the first to begin employing individuals who...
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VNSW Mental Health Home Care Program: In Harmony with the Consumer Movement
It is becoming increasingly understood and appreciated just how much healing and comfort extend beyond the physical. There is a decided mental well-being component as well, recognized by Visiting Nurse Services in Westchester (VNSW), the White Plains-based home health care agency that several years...
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New York State Agencies and Vet Centers Team Up to Provide Mental Health Screening To New York’s National Guard Soldiers
The New York State Division of Veterans Affairs and New York State Office of Mental Health are teaming up with the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs to provide mental health screening to Citizen Soldiers returning from war zones. The state agencies coordinated with the...
