TSH: C'est Pas Mon Jour

Today was my first real day of psych at TSH, and boy was I off to a bad start. First I went to the wrong building, and in my hurry to get to the place where I was supposed to be, my beeper fell off my belt loop (and we're supposed to keep these things with us at all times) and I heard the sound of breaking plastic. All I could find of it was the clip, but I didn't have time to look for it b/c I was already late (and Dr. R, the attending in charge, knew it). It doesn't help that Dr. R is a real stickler for punctuality. I'm usually on time, but again, today was not my day.

I was paired with David, and our job was to take turns talking to the patients as they are brought into the interview room. Aside from us, we are accompanied by Dr. R, a social worker, and 2-3 nurses. The nurse did one interview and then David and I did the rest. My first patient was schizophrenic and didn't talk very much, but at the end of the interview she gave me a hug, which I thought was sweet. One of David's patients was a paranoid schizo named S who, when asked what regrets she had, said she regretted making love with 44 men in her lifetime (down from 45, the number she gave last week). She was approachable at first, but when Dr. R said she was putting her on a certain medication (clozapil), she got really pissed.

S: I'm not taking that drug.
Dr. R: That's fine, but for each day you don't take the drug, you got to get a shot.
S: Now look, Mrs. R, I don't like the way you're talking to me.
Dr. R: You're projecting, do you know what that means? You're bitter.
S: I am not better!
Dr. R: I didn't say better, I said bitter. And your medication is court-ordered, so you have to take it or else we're going to give you a shot.
S: Fine by me.

After this patient was a lady who didn't talk at all, just nodded yes or no (and they were very tiny nods so I had to watch real closely), and at some points she'd write her answers on paper. When she got up to leave, one of the nurses noticed menstrual blood on the chair and said, "Now I know that wasn't there a few minutes ago." Dr. R thought S had peed in the chair and said, "Did she pee? She would do something like that." But no, we said it was menstrual blood, so that chair was taken away and replaced with another one before the next patient arrived. We had lecture at 1:00 at JPS so Dr. R let us go at 11:15 (after giving David and me a very serious talk about how we are going to take our psych rotation seriously, we are not here to be breastfed and have our hand held b/c we are adults, and we are going to do a good job), but I still had to take care of my missing beeper. Fortunately I found it lying on the grass, so I won't have to get a new one after all. But...I ended up not leaving TSH until 11:45, and didn't pull into the JPS parking lot until 12:55. I had to call Anita and ask her to buy me something from the cafeteria or else I wouldn't have had a chance to eat lunch. (David didn't eat any lunch)

The JPS lectures were almost the same lectures we had last year (no surprise). I found myself nodding off after a while; driving more than 2 hrs in the span of 6 hrs can do that to you. After tonight, I'll be staying at Terrell until Saturday morning. So there'll be little to no blogging until then.