New Orleans Native Cares for Psychiatric Patients

Dallas Nursing Institute (DNI) Associate Degree in Nursing Program’s graduate, Rasheedah Plessy, loves her job as a telemetry travel nurse at New Orleans’ Ochsner Health System and the fact that she also gets to work with psychiatric patients. The acute care setting is just her speed, and the 2014 class valedictorian credits DNI with helping her get to her current position.

“DNI has a fast-paced, accelerated program, and that taught me to be fast, but efficient at all times,” she explains. “DNI taught me discipline and how to conduct myself professionally. They also gave me the tools needed to critically think my way through any clinical situation.”

As a telemetry nurse, Plessy reviews data from special equipment such as electrocardiograms to track a patient’s vitals, but it is the psychiatric nursing component that she enjoys the most. “This was my first job, and although it wasn’t planned, I fell in love with it. Psychiatric patients can have several comorbidities, and we focus closely on the mental health of the patient.”

The New Orleans native did her residency in Dallas, Texas at Parkland Memorial Hospital in an acute care setting that allowed her to care for patients with psychiatric issues, enabling her to learn how to care for such patients in her current position. The 2014 DNI graduate is currently working on her B.S.N and F.N.P. with a specialty in psychiatry at Chamberlain University.