Wonderful and Weird

About the Book

Malcolm King, RN, MS, CS, worked as a psychiatric nurse for forty-four years, in twelve hospitals, three countries, and four US states, starting as a nursing assistant and eventually becoming a director of nursing. His book, Wonderful and Weird, is a compilation of the clinical case studies and administrative issues that were most influential in guiding him to a better understanding of the role of the psychiatric nurse and nursing administrator in providing the best possible care to their patients.

The book reviews the positive and negative impacts on psychiatric nursing practice as the theoretical models of psychiatry moved from the psychosocial-psychodynamic model to the current biological-medical model and how those models themselves may be influenced by political trends.

The particular issues for the nurse working with a forensic psychiatry population are discussed, focusing on the need for nurses to be aware of their professional and personal boundaries with this patient group.

Wonderful and Weird will be of interest to those psychiatric nurses making decisions regarding the development of their own careers, and to both educators of psychiatric nurses and educators of general nursing students doing their dreaded psychiatric rotation.

“ I am delighted … that Malcolm King has put pen to paper….a thought-provoking book. “

-Fiona Geiger

Winter 2019 edition of the "Nightingale Fellowship Journal"

U.K. nursing publication

About the Author

Malcolm King was born in Newcastle, England. He graduated from Southampton University in 1970 with a BSc in physiology and biochemistry, then somewhat to his own surprise started working as a nursing assistant at the local county psychiatric hospital, kicking off a career that would last for the rest of his working life. In the United Kingdom, he graduated as a Registered Mental Nurse from the Knowle Hospital School of Nursing, and as a State Registered Nurse from the Nightingale Training School for Nurses at St Thomas’s Hospital. In the United States, he received his Master’s degree in adult psychiatric nursing from Boston University in 1978 and became qualified as a Psychiatric Clinical Nurse Specialist in1985. His career was divided between working as a line staff nurse and serving in middle and executive management positions, at a number of psychiatric hospitals. He has taught as an adjunct faculty member at two American university schools of nursing and has had a number of articles and letters published in professional nursing and psychiatric journals. Since retiring, Mr. King’s interests have included staring at the birds in his backyard with a bottle of beer in hand, and collecting American Indian artifacts. He and his wife, Karen, live in Ohio, as does their daughter, Hilary.