Some of my favorite things

I just finished my Psych rotation and while I don't have any interest in doing it as a profession it was definitely one of my favorite rotations so far. Part of it was because of the awesome hours (show up at 8am-ish, write up our notes and see patients until about 12 or 1pm and head home), the really relaxed attending physician I worked with and the interesting cases we saw. But by far the best part has been overhearing bizarre conversations I overheard that caused almost no reaction from the doctors.
Pt: "I see dead people coming out of my chest telling me to kill myself."
Doctor: "we don't really deal with dead people..."

Pt: "the black government implanted a chip in my head to monitor my thoughts and prove that God exists"

31 year old black Pt: "I'm 98 years old and used to be white, but the handicapped kids I taught kidnapped me and beat me up so badly that I turned black"
"I used to be a pink alien with pink hair down to my feet"

And many more that I just can't remember. I think this would keep things interesting and would be something that I could enjoy, but ultimately I still don't think it's for me. The reason being that I like talking with patients about their health, coming up with a plan together, and teaching them things they need to live a long and healthy life. This doesn't really work too well when the patients' brains are the problem and they can't really understand that what they are thinking is totally askew.

Once in a blue moon

If any of you have ever watched the TV series House M.D. you will know that he believes all patients lie. If you haven't seen the show then here's the low down...he thinks patients lie.
We had a guy that we took care of this week because he came in with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his lung. Yeah, he shot himself but not with the intent to kill himself, just to get attention; a "cry for help" as he put it. There have got to be better ways for getting help, but nevertheless he was admitted to the hospital for depression, got some pain medications, and got his hydrocele surgically repaired so I guess it worked (A Hydrocele is a very uncomfortable disease of certain man parts). As with all patients that a doctor sees, we have to ask them a whole bunch of questions, and especially in the Psych Ward we see a lot of drug abuse so we ask a lot of questions about drugs. When we asked this guy if he did drugs he told us that he only did marijuana "once in a blue moon". When pressed further on that he admitted that he smoked a bowl of marijuana (not a joint, but a bowl) once a week and it helped with his vision (which it doesn't).
So in case you're wondering, "once in a blue moon" for this guy means once a week. (In case you're still wondering, a blue moon means either having 13 full moons in a given calendar year or having 2 full moons in the same calendar month. The 13 full moons one is much rarer than the 2 ful moons one).