Sunday, November 9, 2008

Residency Decisions - Not Psych

I recently started my Psychiatry rotation, and even though I've only been doing it for a week I can pretty much say that Psych is not something I see in my future. That being said, it is very interesting. Many of these people are prisoners of their own minds. One lady on the psych ward illustrates this point. She worked for many years as a postal worker (in the back rooms somewhere, not with customers). It's unclear exactly what happened, but somehow something pushed her over the proverbial edge. She started acting funny (-ier than usual) and it got so bad that she was commited to the psych ward. So far that wasn't the interesting part, what was interesting was that she thinks that she is completely normal. She hasn't washed her hair in over 2 months (until eventually had to put doctor's orders in her chart for a deep shampoo) and this hair was something else. It almost formed a 3 inch halo perpendicular to her head and the rest just fell back after. She has the devil's own hair product because it's been exactly the same for 2 1/2 months! It's very intersting talking with her though because she doesn't think she should be there, nothing is wrong with her, she needs to get out to go back to work, they have replaced her at work with an imposter, the women that visited her aren't her real daughters because her daughters are still little, etc. I just feel badly for her, but there isn't any reasoning with her. These messages are coming from her own brain without and of the normal filters that you or I have so she has no reason to disbelieve them, they are ABSOLUTELY true to her.
I guess ultimately I don't think that Psychiatry is for me because 1) i'm not patient enough for it and 2) I like interacting with people too much and even normal conversations here are analyzed for clues into the patients' brains, you can't just sit back and have a conversation with them.

1 comment:

The MontaƱo’s said...

i agree with you. I worked with some kids in DT who were later moved to the State Hospital. Very interesting stuff, but not something i would like to be around every single day. Glad to hear you have ruled out one residency!!