I went to school with Andrea Kemp at Arizona State, so I've watched her become one of the sharpest inpatient psych NPs I know. She almost went to law school. Psych won. Eleven years later she runs a step-down unit, teaches in a PMHNP program, and says the thing most people get wrong about inpatient psychiatry starts at the front door.

That locked door? It isn't there to protect the world from the patients. It's there because someone is not safe, and the unit is where they finally get to be. Most of what you picture from TV is wrong, and Andrea spends this episode setting it straight.

This is Part 1 of two, and we stay on the unit: what inpatient psych actually is, the medication puzzle she loves solving, and the hardest part of the job — involuntary treatment, and what it means to take someone's autonomy while still treating them like a person. Her rule has stuck with me. A patient may not remember the meds you gave them, but they will always remember whether you talked to them like a human being.

We also get honest about safety. Andrea has been assaulted on the job, and she doesn't sugarcoat it. It's also, oddly enough, where she met her husband — he stepped in the day a patient's family member threatened her. She talks about all of it without flinching, and about why she still loves this work.

And because she got hired five months before graduation and negotiated $130,000 as a brand-new grad, she walks through exactly how she pulled it off. If your first job is for learning and not earning, she'll show you how to still get paid while you learn.

Come back for Part 2, where we get into prepping for clinical and everything she wishes psych NP students knew.

Go listen. Then tell me what surprised you. — Lindsay

CONNECT WITH ANDREA Inpatient-focused community for psych NPs & PAs — launching soon Speaking on NP decision fatigue at the Southwest NP Symposium (Mesa, AZ · late July) [add Andrea's TikTok / community link]

LISTEN TO NO PRIOR AUTH 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2xQMQAfCsq3OrVz3RTndA80gfFEFOsez 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1893233469 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tNbJqeMERnglfTHedOhym 🌐 Website: https://psychnpfellowship.com/podcast/ 👥 Community: https://www.skool.com/psych

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