St Patrick’s Mental Health Services (SPMHS) shares a new podcast exploring what it really means to be a mental health nurse today.
Everyone has the right to live a mentally healthy life and to feel empowered to achieve whatever they’re capable of. And when someone needs a little help to get to that point, psychiatric nurses are there to help.
In our new Mental Health Conversations podcast, we take you inside the doors of SPMHS, meeting nurses from right across our services, as well as some of our service users who have spent time in their care.
Together, we step inside the world of a mental health service, exploring the rewards and challenges of the role of a mental health nurse, the powerful impact that nurses can make in people’s lives, and where psychiatric nursing is going in the future.
Made by nurses, for nurses, the series is hosted by Shane Kirwan and Aoife Farrington of our Nursing Department, and was inspired by an idea from Evelina Dudenaite, a staff nurse who won our Caroline Doyle Nurse Innovation Idea of the Year Award in 2023.
Here, you’ll find each episode of the series: you can listen in the player below, or keep scrolling to get show notes and links for each individual episode. The podcast is available to listen on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
Whether you're a seasoned nurse, a nursing student, or an advocate for mental health and human rights, Mental Health Conversations is here to inform, inspire and empower us and to celebrate mental health nursing as a job and vocation that plays such a critical role in society.
Episode one: A day in the life of a mental health nurse
The role of the mental health nurse involves many things, but, at the core, it’s all about helping people to get better. In this very first episode of Mental Health Conversations, Clinical Nurse Manager Jenny Judge describes the day-to-day aspects of her job, what she finds rewarding about her role, and the positive impact that she hopes to have on the people in her care.
We hear a powerful story from Jude McCarthy, one of our former service users, about her time in SPMHS – what led to her admission, the good parts and the challenges, and the critical role that nurses played in her experience, and, ultimately, in her recovery.
And host Shane Kirwan takes us on a tour of St Patrick’s University Hospital, where we learn about the service user journey, day-to-day life on the wards, and some of the recreational activities available for our service users to enjoy.
Listen to episode one in the player below, or tune in on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
See more from episode one
Episode two: Providing care for adults with eating disorders
In SPMHS, we offer a range of specialist services designed to meet the care needs of service users experiencing certain mental health difficulties. One of these specialities is our Eating Disorders Service which provides care for adults who have eating difficulties.
On this episode of Mental Health Conversations, host Aoife Farrington meets Gráinne O’Connor, Clinical Nurse Manager of our Eating Disorder Day Care Programme. Gráinne describes what the programme involves, the nature of the care it provides, and how it feels to watch service users recover.
Aoife also meets two members of the team behind the Eating Disorder Aftercare Programme, dietician Laura Crotty and manager Megan Strickland, to explore how having ongoing connection and peer support makes a real difference to long-term recovery.
Listen to our second episode below, or tune in on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
See more from episode two
Episode three: Caring for adults with anxiety through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Virtual Reality
Anxiety disorders can have a profound effect on our lives, and at St Patrick’s Mental Health Services, we offer specialised treatment for people experiencing them.
On this episode of Mental Health Conversations, Shane Kirwan meets Frank Smith, Clinical Nurse Manager 2 on our Anxiety Disorders Programme. They discuss the various difficulties that the programme is designed to treat, some of the key ideas behind CBT, how care is structured and what it involves. We also hear stories of successful recovery.
More recently, Virtual Reality (VR) technology has been emerging as a way of supporting treatment of certain anxiety-related conditions, such as phobias. Frank describes an innovative new VR treatment being used in St Patrick’s, and we hear a first-hand account of the technology in action with Orlaith Grehan of our Communications team.
We also explore two of the other specialised services and treatments that we offer in St Patrick’s by visiting our special care unit and learning more about Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT).
Listen to our third episode below, or tune in on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
