Some UB nursing students will spend this semester working with nurses at BryLin Hospital to get experience working with patients getting behavioral health assistance.

BryLin and UB partner to give nursing students experience in mental health realm

A new partnership will allow University at Buffalo nursing students to get hands-on mental health training, something that organizers said will help the next generation of healers overcome stereotypes.

A dedicated education unit has been set up at BryLin Hospital, where nursing students will get one-on-one training with BryLin registered nurses. This is an extension of UB’s partnerships with agencies such as Catholic Health and Hospice Buffalo that gives students experience with patients, according to Michele McKay, the School of Nursing’s undergraduate clinical coordinator.

The program gives students to get a direct look at what’s needed to help those seeking mental health or substance abuse treatment.

BryLin’s RNs were trained by UB on how to instruct students during the semester-long session, Szarzanowicz said. The refresher was helpful because most current nurses trained in a clinical setting with eight students per instructor, a method that Szarzanowicz said this new program improves upon.

It also gives students exposure to the daily issues that patients deal with, something many who in the workforce didn’t encounter until well after they’d been hired. The program will allow students to work in admissions, youth and adult inpatient, and electroconvulsive therapy, exposing them to every aspect of the hospital’s operations and letting them compare how people at different ages and levels are cared for.

About 68 junior nursing students take part in the program now. Plans call for expanding once everyone is comfortable, Szarzanowicz said. About a dozen RNs have been trained as instructors, with another group going through training now.

If the program is able to keep growing, Szarzanowicz hopes it could be curb what’s become a dearth of qualified caregivers at facilities such as his.

“There is a typical shortage in RNs in all areas of nursing, however we have been hit harder,” he said. “Mental health is a specialty, and there is stigma and fear that we are trying to decrease. We look at this as an opportunity to recruit and retain nurses.”

It could also improve the societal understanding of what agencies like BryLin do.

The program “really helps people understand how mental health and substance abuse affects individuals and how we treat those individuals,” he said. “You will have more advocates out there who feel there is no stigma about mental health.”

From the university’s perspective, the program may bolster its role as a research institution. The nursing school began placing student at BryLin for clinical rotations last spring, but this semester is the first in which the more personal dedicated education unit model is being used, McKay said.

“DEU nurses working with UB students have been trained in coaching the student to critically think, problem-solve and make sound clinical decisions to ensure safe and proactive patient care, as well as to give students positive and constructive feedback,” she said.

The program may grow to include BryLin’s outpatient center in Williamsville in the near future.