Some more thoughts on psychiatry

With only one-and-a-half weeks remaining of my psychiatric rotation remaining, I feel that I have deprived whatever loyal blog-readers of mine that might be out there from a veritable cornucopia of fantastic stories from my experience working in inpatient psychiatric wards in a hospital outside of the city. Part of me feels guilty sharing the psychoses of my patients with friends and acquaintances, especially since what seem to me at times to be amusing, embarassing, or completely ridiculous interpretations of reality are, in fact, the cause of devastated lives and tormented minds in people who for the most part did nothing wrong. Unfortunately, many mental illnesses execute a kind of "scorched earth" campaign on the brain, and many patients can never put their lives back together. However, I think that discussing those kinds of experiences can be illuminating of certain parts of the human experience. So if you're interested in some really interesting stories, I'm happy to talk about them in person--no public postings, here. I'm going to try to hold myself to that.

In the meanwhile, I'm working on the geriatric floor. What a great place! Dear old folks that you kind of herd around in a tender way, making sure they know where they are and trying to ease their depression, psychoses, etc.