Prison inmates need nurses too!

A friend of mine works in a prison hospital (Atascadero State Hospital) in California. She's been at it going on a year and she makes an exceptional salary. This hospital deals with psychiatric cases. She told me that most of the patients there were homeless people when they were arrested. That fact intrigued me. It suggests a couple of things: 1) homeless people are often mentally unstable; 2) police are not shy about putting homeless people in the slammer.

Fact is, she enjoys her work too. She gets a lot of responsibility and she's not always working directly with doctors. Doctors are needed to examine the patients, of course, but they don't hang around constantly and bother the nurses. ;)

Here is an article about prison nursing:
http://www.nursingprogramsonline.com/nursing-careers/prison-nursing.shtml