Tuesday, July 23

Psych wk4, day 17:

i played host to my outpatient group of 5 med students and 1 preceptor today. the subject was one of my patients, who i had chosen for this purpose, with his consent. the session proved to be incredible.

my patient revealed many parts to his history that he had previously withheld, and demonstrated much more psych pathology that i thought existed. at several points during the interview, he started speaking to himself, something that he had never done before. a different personality from what was normally presented spoke to him, warning him, cursing at him, just unbelievable stuff. my group and i were transfixed by the interview. i was hoping that the preceptor would psychoanalyze my patient, and unravel the mysteries of his past and its contribution to his current state. she did uncover a lot, but did not put together the puzzle like i had hoped.

during today's community mtg, there was a new pt. he was sitting on a chair, grimacing, glaring, moving his mouth, twitching his head, as though he was cursing at and threatening someone, all without making a sound, while the mtg was going on. i was getting pretty freaked out, b/c it seemed as though at any second, he would leap out of his chair and attack someone. turns out that the person is really docile, with a gentle personality, but that his bizarre symptoms, tardive dyskinesia, is a side effect of one of his medications. there are too many sad things on this unit. i go from laughing my head off to a sad state within seconds in this place.

another issue came up during the mtg. turns out that the pts want to see rated R movies. they're tired of watching oklahoma and little house on the prairie, they said. when told that rated R movies have sexual scenes and violence, they didn't understand why that mattered. why would watching violent movies on a psych unit matter, they asked? again, your sympathetic med student was giggling internally in the corner, frowning and making a grimace to hide the smile.

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i shared some of my stories with my little bro, and he suggested watching a movie this past wkend, called session 9. if you want a freaky movie, watch it. it was strangely appropriate for the things i've been seeing in my life lately.


yakob at 10:37 PM

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