Psych is cool
I've found a problem with the way I've been posting on this blog. I wait until the end of the week but by that time I've forgotten all of the things I want to post. I might try posting short bits during the week rather than a big weekly post.
Psychiatry is starting to grow on me. At first I found listening to all of the difficult stories literally made me feel like a huge weight was pushing me into the ground. They're all so emotionally draining. However I'm starting to toughen up and starting to think that psychiatry is quite a nice specialty. It's really cool being able to help out patients in so many different ways. From medications to psychological interventions to family involvement, there's so many things that can be done - and when it works, it's so fantastic to see!
There are very few emergencies in the outpatient setting. If anything is urgent, the crisis team can sort it out. Appointments are for 30 or 60 mins. So, if your patients don't turn up, you could have a whole hour to kill. If two patients don't turn up, you might have half a day completely free!
Another advantage is that you can work part time. That means you can spend the rest of you time researching into more important things such as the next Final Fantasy release, places to see in Toronto or playing tennis or whatever else takes your fancy.
Of course, like every speicalty, there are disadvantages. For example, you might have a patient who thinks that you are the direct descendent of Satan and decide that you need to be introduced to his/her machete. But that's okay because you have spent your 2 days off each week perfecting techniques such as the Kamaehamaeha Wave or summoning your favourite aeon. I would favour Bahamut in a situation like that.
The other down side of psychiatry is the mountain of paperwork that needs to be sorted out for each patient. However once again there is an easy solution. You can ask your TI (Trainee Idiot) to write them up for you.
In summary, psychiatry is a very interesting specialty with potential for great job satisfaction and equally great lifestyle. There are a few disadvantages but there are ways of overcoming them. Defintely something to think about for the future!
Difficult to please...
I spent first week of psychiatry sitting around doing nothing for half the day, sitting around trying desperately to stay awake. If I was lucky, I got to see a patient, but the consultant rooms were too warm and that made me even more sleepy. Painfully sleepy. My eyes would water, overloading my lacrimal ducts, causing my nose to run as well. I even resorted to reading a Cochrane review of olanzapine for schizophrenia to try and stay awake.
Then week two arrived. Before I knew it, I had sat in on three new patient consultations and had to write them all up in full psychiatric glory - 4th year case history style. Except in 4th year we had to write up two cases over six weeks. I had to write these new patients up ASAP! Oh, how I long for the days of surgery....
S-abdo pain
O-RLQ tenderness
A-appendicitis
P-NBM, BMC, OT
Psych could be the same really...
S-sees dead people
O-what dead people!?!?!?!? *play spooky music here*
A-MAD
P-clozipine stat.
Alas, psych is not like that. Painting the picture of a psychotic patient is very difficult indeed. Yes, I know being slightly psychotic myself, it should be easy for me however unless you've had exactly the same delusions as the person you're writing about, it's quite tricky to portray how the patient presents in a Word document.
Anyway, I digress. Fortunately, by Thurday morning I had managed to catch up on all of the paper work. Then I sat in on another new patient and had another case to write up! I spent all of Thurday afternoon working on that. Received feedback on Friday, and spent the rest of that morning making the necessary changes. I emailed it to my consultant before I left, but sent it to the wrong email address! So now he's probably thinks I'm a complete slacker and didn't get the work done before I ran away for the weekend.
In other news, I'm quite disgruntled with my tennis. In singles, I'm on a 4 match losing streak. I feel like it's becoming a habit and I don't know how to win anymore. Today was particularly frustrating because all of my shots were working - even my backhand which I've been dumping in the net - but I couldn't get a decent serve in! I even tried rolling my arm over just to get the ball in play but they kept on dumping into the net! A sure sign of a lack of practice. Unfortunately, that's just another of adverse effect of medicine. It insidiously draws you away from other things that you enjoy, until they become fun no more.
However I'm trying to not let medicine destroy the fun of tennis. I'll try to practise a little more this year and at least get back to a decent standard where I don't have to do scream in agony every time the ball dumps into the net.
OK, that's enough rambling for one night. It's getting late and my English is deteriorating fast. BYE!
A cool video!
I've added a really cool link to a video. It's called
Yellow Fever and was first shown to me by JW. Have a look and let me know what you think!
Warning - it's quite large, so beware dial-up users.
I survived GP
Oh my giddy aunt. I knew Trust Health Care would be busy, but I never expected to have a near death experience. OK, perhaps I exaggerate a little, but the run was seriously busy. Especially the days TF was there. There were a couple of days where I didn't get home until 7pm. That's nuts for a GP attachment! Oh well, I can't really complain as I asked to go there, and I knew it would be hard work. It was worth it though since I learnt heaps and still had lots of fun despite the chaos.
Now to the world of psychiatry! First day today. I nearly died of boredom waiting to see a patient. I was allocated a small desk in the cubicle area and was waiting quietly for a consultant to see a patient. However I think I was probably too quiet and they kept forgetting to tell me when they were about to see someone. Finally at 3pm, after reading the 4th yr notes for the millionth time, I managed to see a couple of people but nothing particularly dramatic happened. After that, I was out the door faster than a speeding bullet!
On Saturday, I'm going to be a model patient for the surgical part 1 exams! I'm quite looking forward to that. It will be a good experience to see what it's like for the registrars without having to sit the exam myself. I hope they don't tell me to be a hernia patient. That would suck. *cough*cough*
