psych!

this afternoon, as part of our clinical coaching session we spent some time in the mental health ward of our hospital. it was a sneak peek into psychiatry. and to be honest it was exactly what i expected... fascinating but also quite scary.

we started off in our coach's office. it was a huge corner office, i was impressed to see that patient charts and folders overflowing with sheets of paper didn't cover every square inch of his desk or his floor or his chairs. our coach was probably mid-50s, well-dressed and like many in the medical profession, a blackberry addict. his crackberry must've went off about 3 or 4 times within the first 1/2 hour.

although very nice and clearly very well educated there was something about him that made me slightly uncomfortable. for starters, he spoke REALLY fast. he also kept saying "you know..." think of alicia silverstone in "clueless" from back in the day. now replace all the "like" with the words "you know". that was our coach. lastly, he just seemed a little... anxious. he didn't have any characteristic tics but he just couldn't sit/stand still. he kept fidgeting with his marker or the chair or whatever he could get his hands on.
i can't help but think that maybe his patients have rubbed off on him JUST a little bit.

after running through how to take a history on a psychiatric patient, we actually went to go see one. i'll be completely honest, i was nervous. and it didn't help with my coach saying as we started walking out of his office... "let's go see if we can chat with a few patients. should be fine. you guys will be safe." SAFE?!?!?! nobody mentioned anything about being UNSAFE! i was worried.

once on the ward it didn't get much better.  i'm sure we reeked of fear. all the patients stared at us as we walked by.  some of the patients were curious (?) audacious (?) enough to come over to where we were standing and strike a little conversation with us.  when we introduced ourselves to the patients i didn't even give them my real name despite my ID badge hanging conspicuously from my belt loop.  what a douche!  (in my defense, i was the last to introduce myself and no one before me gave their real names!)

the patient we interviewed was quite interesting.  he left home at a young age and has split time living on the streets, shelters or mental health wards like this one.  without going into too much detail, he suffers from schizophrenia and believes that he is a messiah. some of the things he told us: he used to speak with bill gates, stephen hawkin, bill clinton and many others on a regular basis on an internet forum.  he had powers of exorcism but these powers - along with his musical talents, have dissipated since he's been on his anti-psychotic meds.

i've always thought psychiatry to be incredibly engaging and interesting but i never really could see myself specializing in it. not to be crude but don't think i could work with crazy people all the time.  having said that though, i can't seem to strike psych off my "potential specialties list". there's something about it that i like which i can't quite put my finger on.

well, we get a 8 week block in mental health next year.  i definitely look forward to it - but with a healthy dose of apprehension of course. :)